"Not at all. There's the trouble. If he'd only quarrel there'd be no
harm done. Quarreling's cheap, and Tommy's extravagant. A big
blacksmith here, the other day, kicked some boy out of his shop, and
Tommy, on his cart, happened to be passing at the time; and he just
jumped off without a word, and went in and worked on that fellow for
about three minutes, with such disastrous results that they couldn't
tell his shop from a slaughter-house; paid an assault and battery
fine, and gave the boy a dollar beside, and the whole thing was a
positive luxury to him. But I guess we'd better drop the subject, for
here's his cart, and here's Tommy. Hi! there, you Far-down 'Irish
Mick!" called the Major, in affected antipathy, "been out raiding the
honest farmers' hen-roosts again, have you?"
We had halted at a corner grocery and produce store, as I took it, and
the smooth-faced, shave-headed man in woolen shirt, short vest, and
suspenderless trousers so boisterously addressed by the Major, was
just lifting from the back of his cart a coop of cackling chickens.
"Arrah! ye blasted Kerryonian!" replied the handsome fellow,
depositing the coop on the curb and straightening his tall, slender
figure; "I were jist thinking of yez and the ducks, and here ye come
quackin' into the prisence of r'yalty, wid yer canvas-back suit upon
ye and the shwim-skins bechuxt yer toes! How air yez, anyhow--and air
we startin' for the Kankakee by the nixt post?"
"We're to start just as soon as we get the boys together," said the
Major, shaking hands.
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