Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/229

Rh fer 'm. An' me bein' his brother, didn't they read me out o' the party entirely! The lyin' scut! 'Yeh fat toad!' I says to 'm. 'Yeh 've rooned me,' I says. 'Yeh 've rooned me!' An' he had so—but divil a bit he cared. 'Yeh 're a most amazin' fine young roon,' he says. 'Yeh better go back to th' oold country,' he says, 'an' set yerself up on a hill where th' ivy 'll grow on yeh,' he says. Such like talk as that! An' him that 'd brought me out to make me for-tune, mind yeh! Mind yeh that, now!… Sorry the day, Mike. Sorry the day!"

He had dropped his voice to a pathetic huskiness, and he blinked as if to keep back tears. Barney saw that he had gone too far with his joke; it was evident that the girl was not finding it amusing. "Say!" he turned to her. "Come 'n' have a lem'nade. They 'll be dancin' down on the groun' floor."

She rose at once.

"We 'll be back," Barney excused himself, cheerfully.

His father, used to these sudden departures of his audience when he would be airing his grievances, showed no resentment—no interest even. The mother, without so much as looking up to see them go, accepted with relief the accustomed companionship of silence that was the genius of her married life.

Barney and the girl made their way along the crowded deck of the barge, through the music, and the odors of picnic baskets, and the games of children who chased one another and screamed. She said: "That 's a