"I should think not," said Furlong, with a knowing smile, who suspected this was intended to be a second edition of quizzing _à la mode de saumon_.
"You think I'm joking," said the boy, "but it's famous sport, I can tell you; but if you're tired of waiting here, come along with me to the milliner's, and we can wait for Gusty there."
While following the boy, who jumped along to the tune of a jig he was whistling, now and then changing the whistle into a song to the same tune, with very odd words indeed, and a burden of gibberish ending with "riddle-diddle-dow," Furlong wondered what a milliner could have to do in such an establishment, and his wonder was not lessened when his guide added, "The milliner is a queer chap, and maybe he'll tell us something funny."
"Then the milline' is a man?" said Furlong.
"Yes," said the boy, laughing; "and he does not work with needle and thread either."
They approached a small out-house as he spoke, and the sharp clinking of a hammer fell on the ear. Shoving open a rickety door, the boy cried, "Well, Fogy, I've brought a gentleman to see you. This is Fogy, the milliner, sir," said he to Furlong, whose surprise was further increased, when, in the person of the man called the milliner, he beheld a tinker.
"What a strange pack of people I have got amongst," thought Furlong.
The old tinker saw his surprise, and grinned at him. "I suppose it was a nate young woman you thought you'd see when he towld you he'd bring you to the milliner--ha! ha! ha! Oh, they're nate lads, the Master O'Gradys; divil a thing they call by the proper name, at all."
"Yes, we do," said the boy, sharply; "we call ourselves by our proper name. Ha! Fogy, I have you there."
"Divil a taste, as smart as you think yourself, Masther Ratty; you call yourselves gentlemen, and that's not your proper name."
Ratty, who was scraping triangles on the door with a piece of broken brick, at once converted his pencil into a missile, and let fly at the head of the tinker, who seemed quite prepared for such a result, for, raising the kettle he was mending, he caught the shot adroitly, and the brick rattled harmlessly on the tin.
"Ha!" said the tinker, mockingly, "you missed me, like your mammy's blessin';" and he pursued his work.