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‘Faith, you may say that, Shorsha dear!—it is seldom much to do that I have.’ ‘And what are you doing with your hands?’ ‘Faith, then, if I must tell you, I was e’en dealing with the cards.’ ‘Do you play much at cards?’ ‘Sorra a game, Shorsha, have I played with the cards since my uncle Phelim, the thief, stole away the ould pack, when he went to settle in the county Waterford!’
"Arrah, Murtagh!" said I, "would ye be breaking the head of your friend and scholar, to whom you taught the blessed tongue of Oilien nan Naomha, in exchange for a pack of cards?" Murtagh, for he it was, gazed at me for a moment with a bewildered look; then, with a gleam of intelligence in his eye, he said, "Shorsha! no, it can't be yes, by my faith it is!"
'Faith, Shorsha, he had better have looked at home, for his appearance was not much in his favour: he looked very much like a Jew, Shorsha.
Well, his Holiness was frighted, and the almoner ran out, and brought in his Holiness's attendants, and they laid hold of me, but I struggled hard, and said, 'I will not go without my pack; arrah, your Holiness! make them give me my pack, which Shorsha gave me in Dungarvon times of old; but my struggles were of no use.
I was telling ye, Shorsha, when ye interrupted me, that I found the Pope, the rector, the sub-rector, and the almoner seated at the table, the rector with my pack of cards in his hands, about to deal out to the Pope and the rest, not forgetting himself, for whom he intended all the trump- cards, no doubt.
Faith, Shorsha dear! that snake bates anything about Finn-ma-Coul or Brian Boroo, the thieves two, bad luck to them!" "And do they get up and tell you stories?" "Sometimes they does, but oftenmost they curses me and bids me be quiet!
We had a long and tedious voyage, Shorsha; not so tedious, however, as it would have been had I been fool enough to lave your pack of cards behind me, as the thaif, my brother Denis, wanted to persuade me to do, in order that he might play with them himself.
"Well, Shorsha," said he, "you are a broth of a boy, and I'll take your benefaction five pounds! och, Jasus!"
"We reached Leghorn at last, and glad I was to leave the ship and the master, who gave me a kick as I was getting over the side, bad luck to the dirty heretic for kicking a son of the church, for I have always been a true son of the church, Shorsha, and never quarrelled with it unless it interfered with me in my playing at cards.
Then, springing up, and seizing me by the hand, he said, "Yes, by the powers, sure enough it is Shorsha agra! Arrah, Shorsha! where have you been this many a day? Sure, you are not one of the spalpeens who are after robbing me?" "Not I," I replied, "but I saw all that happened.
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