Page 74 - The snake's pass

62 — THE snake's pass.
to Shleenanaher or any other place in the neighbour-
hood."
" Shure no, yer 'an'r, but I remimber ye said ye'd like
to see the Shiftin' Bog; an' thin Misther Joyce and
Miss Norah is in throuble, and ye might be a comfort
to thim."
"Mr. Joyce ! Miss Norah ! who are they?" I felt that
I was getting red and that the tone of my voice was
most unnatural.
Andy's sole answer was as comical a look as I ever
saw, the central object in which was a wink which
there was no mistaking. I could not face it, and had
to say :
" Oh yes, I remember now ! was not that the man
"
we took on the car to a dark mountain ?
"
" Yes, surr—him and his daughther
!
" His daughter Surely we
! I do not remember her.
only took him on the car." Again I felt angry, and
with the anger an inward determination not to have
Andy or anyone else prying around me when I should
choose to visit even such an uncompromising pheno-
menon as a shifting bog. Andy, like all humourists,
understood human nature, and summed up the situation
conclusively in his reply—inconsequential though it
was :
" Shure yer 'an'r can thrust me; its blind or deaf
an' dumb I am, an' them as knows me knows I'm not
the man to go back on a young gintleman goin' to
luk at a bog. Sure doesn't all young min do that