At last, wearied
with being twitted by him with not being able to learn his thaives'
Greek, I proposed that I should teach him Irish, that we should
spake it together when we had anything to say in secret. To that
he consented willingly; but, och! a purty hand he made with Irish,
'faith, not much better than I did with his thaives' Hebrew. Then
my turn came, and I twitted him nicely with dulness, and compared
him with a pal that I had in ould Ireland, in Dungarvon times of
yore, to whom I teached Irish, telling him that he was the broth of
a boy, and not only knew the grammar of all human tongues, but the
dialects of the snakes besides; in fact, I tould him all about your
own sweet self, Shorsha, and many a dispute and quarrel had we
together about our pals, which was the cleverest fellow, his or
mine.
"Well, after having been wid him about two months, I quitted him
without noise, taking away one of his tables, and some peas and
thimbles; and that I did with a safe conscience, for he paid me
nothing, and was not over free with the meat and the drink, though
I must say of him that he was a clever fellow, and perfect master
of his trade, by which he made a power of money, and bating his not
being able to learn Irish, and a certain Jewish lisp which he had,
a great master of his tongue, of which he was very proud; so much
so, that he once told me that when he had saved a certain sum of
money he meant to leave off the thimbling business, and enter
Parliament; into which, he said, he could get at any time, through
the interest of a friend of his, a Tory Peer--my Lord Whitefeather,
with whom, he said, he had occasionally done business.
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