Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/267

Rh this shoe if I can. Go away up from me and sit in that chair above, and let me do my work."

"You are the most extraordinary man I have ever met yet!" said the Black Man. "You have no fear or dread of me any more than you would have of a puppy dog!"

"Well, that is a comical thing," said Shiana, with a burst of laughter. "You think that because you have horns and claws we should run into an auger-hole to hide from you. If it is your bargain you want, fulfil your own side of it, man! The time belongs to me as yet. I want to finish this shoe. You are preventing me from doing it. You are breaking the bargain even now. You lost the time during which the purse was out of my possession. Every moment you are spending there, answering me back every second word, is going down in the account against you. You broke the bargain by coming here to claim me, while you had no right to me until the time should come. You made a mistake in that. You are under no mistake now. You know well that the time has not come yet, and that you are violating the contract. Go up there and sit in that chair above, and don't speak to me again until the right time comes, or you will have dissolved the contract yourself, and I shall be free from you, and I promise you it is not I that will be sorry for it. See! There is the purse. There is the shoe. There is the leather. The time belongs to me as yet. Go up there and sit down or else the contract is dissolved and I am free from you."

The tip of the tail began to twist and turn, just as a cat's tail would when he thought a rat was coming to him out of a hole.