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I'm Art Maguire; one of the great Maguires of Fermanagh! Think of the blood of the Maguires, and stand a glass. Barney Scaddhan won't trust me now; although many a pound and penny of good money I left him." "Ay," the person accosted would reply, "an' so sign's on you; you would be a different man to-day, had you visited Barney Scaddhan's seldomer, or kept out of it altogether."
It was an unlucky day to me I ever seen the face of one of you here, Atty, I've some money; some strange fellow at the inn below stood to me for the price of a naggin, an' that blasted Barney Scaddhan wouldn't let me in, bekase, he said, I was a disgrace to his house, the scoundrel." "The same house was a black sight to you, Art." "Here, Atty, go off and, get me a naggin."
"Scaddhan," said Toal, "go an' bring me two tumblers of good strong punch. I'm a Totaller as well as Art, boys. Be off, Scaddhan." "By Japers," said Tom Whiskey, as if to himself looking at the same time as if he were perfectly amazed at the circumstance "the little fellow has more spunk than Maguire, ould blood an' all! Oh, holy Moses; afther that, what will the world come to!"
* Scaddhan, a herring, a humorous nickname bestowed upon him, because he made the foundation of his fortune by selling herrings. "An' if Barney Scaddhan keeps good whiskey, is that any rason why I should break my word, or would you have me get dhrunk because his liquor's betther than another man's?"
For a considerable time before his arrival, there were assembled in Barney Scaddhan's tap, Tom Whiskey, Jerry Shannon, Jack Mooney, Toal Finnigan, and the decoy duck, young Barney Scaddhan himself, who merely became a teetotaller that he might be able to lure his brethren in to spend their money in drinking cordial.
"Divil a sich a pest ever this house had as the same Art when he was a blackguard," said young Scaddhan; "there was no keepin' him out of it, but constantly spungin' upon the dacent people that wor dhrmkin' in it." "Many a good pound and penny he left you for all that, Barney, my lad," said Mooney; "and purty tratement you gave him when his money was gone."
"Here, Barney Scaddhan Barney, I say, what's the reckonin', you sinner? Now, Art Maguire, divil a penny of this you'll pay for you're too ginerous, an' have the heart of a prince." "And kind family for him to have the heart of a prince, sure we all know what the Fermanagh Maguires wor; of coorse we won't let him pay." "Toal Finnigan, do you want me to rise my hand to you?
"Ay, an' we'd give you the same," returned Scaddhan, "if your's was gone, too; ha, ha, ha! it's not moneyless vagabones we want here." "No," said Shannon, "you first make them moneyless vagabones, an' then you kick them out o' doors, as you did him." "Exactly," said the hardened miscreant, "that's the way we live; when we get the skin off the cat, then we throw out the carcass."
"Ay, but Paddy Pancake's here to-day, sir, an' he's able to welt me; so that's it's only leathered I'd get, sir, i' you plase." "But have you no officers? Call in aid, I ordher you. Can't you make Sam Scaddhan and Phiddher Mackleswig there two policeman get Pancake down flatten him if he prove contumacious during my absence.
"Whisht, now," said Margaret, interrupting him, "you're beginnin' to praise yourself." "Well, I won't then; I'm going down the town to have a glass or two o' cordial wid young Tom Whiskey, in Barney Scaddhan's." "Art," she replied, somewhat solemnly, "the very name of Barney Scaddhan sickens me.
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