In the old days, when he had the blacksmith’s shop in Castle Knock, it would take him three times as long to make a horse-shoe or shoe a horse as it would take any other blacksmith in the country.
He would lean on his hammer and discourse on the colour of the horse, on the state of the weather, on anything at all so long as he could hold you in talk, and stave off for a moment doing the work he had before him. He was, like most idle and useless people, as inquisitive as a magpie.
He leaned now on the window-ledge, looking leisurely about him, whilst Patsy, who had skipped into the furthest corner of the room, stood looking at his uncle and shivering, and wishing he would go.
“What’s in them chest of drawers?” said Con, nodding at the old deal chest of drawers on which the candle was burning.
“Nothing,” replied Patsy; “only me ould clothes and a shirt or two Mrs Kinsella has given me.”
“Open the drawer and take out your clothes,” commanded his uncle.
“Now,” said the other, “off with them buttons and stripes and on with the ould things, so that I may forget I’m talkin’ to the disgrace of the fam’ly.”
Patsy did as he was bid, and whilst he was changing Con continued his conversation.
“I suppose,” said he, “there be great preparings going on for the quality.”
“Ay, is there,” replied Patsy, whose mind was much perturbed by the thought of what Con could be “afther,” for he well knew that his uncle had come for some other purpose than simply to stand at the window and talk upon general subjects.
“Pies and puddin’s and all,” went on Con.
“Stuff in bottles wid gold tops to thim that let’s off like a gun. The ould missis drinks it for dinner every night in her life. Mr James give me a glass of it from the lavin’s of the bottle, and I’d no sooner drunk it than I tumbled down the stairs wid a tray of glasses and smashed every mother’s son of thim.”
“How many bottles does she drink of it?” asked Con, whose estimation of Lady Seagrave rose considerably at this graphic description of her favourite beverage.
“She doesn’t have more than a glass,” replied Patsy; “and she mixes it with Siltzer water.”
“It’s water that tastes as if it was full of pins and needles.”
Con mused for a moment on the strange habits of the high and mighty, whilst Patsy, who had changed his clothes, stood waiting for what was to follow. He had not long to wait.
