Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/52

38 the meal and for the apples than he had felt the day before, and he ate as much as he wanted of them. He was eating and thinking for a long time. At last he stopped, and struck his knee with his open hand.

"By the book!" said he, "if Dermot were to see me buy that black horse, there's no knowing where the questions would stop. I should have no chance of escaping him. He is too sharp altogether. When you had given him an excuse and you would think you had done with him, he would just fasten on you all the more firmly. Perhaps, after all, it is best that I didn't buy a horse or a cow. I don't care, since I have the money. That horse would kill me, and then I wouldn't have even the thirteen years. And as I didn't buy the cow, I needn't be looking out for a wife to milk her. Perhaps it is just as well as it is. 'The thing a man would dislike more than death, for all he knows may be his best good-fortune!' I will make these shoes, and then I will go to Dermot and get two pounds' worth, and then four pounds' worth, and so on. Ha! ha! Dermot, well, well, well! The thing will slide on and up unknown to you. Wasn't I a great blockhead not to think of that plan at first? Of course nothing could be worse for me than that the reputation of having money should go out about me suddenly like that. People would say I had stolen it from somebody. But when it is put out by degrees, everybody will think, of course, that I have made it out of my trade."

When he had settled his mind so far, he took another bit of the meal and ate it, and he got another apple and chewed it. Then he drew his leather to