"Do you think you can do it, me boy?" said the Senator. "If you think you can, why you can."
"I know I can," said the reckless Dillon, who had never made a speech in his life.
"An' lemme give you a subject," said Judy. They were all together in the sitting-room, where the Senator had surprised them in a game of cards.
"Give a bastin' to Mare Livingstone," said Judy seriously. "I read in the _Sun_ how he won't inspect the parade on St. Patrick's Day, nor let the green flag fly on the city hall. There must be an Orange dhrop in his blood, for no dacint Yankee 'ud have anny hathred for the blessed green. Sure two years ago Mare Jones dressed himself up in a lovely green uniform, like an Irish prince, an' lukked at the parade from a platform. It brought the tears to me eyes, he lukked so lovely. They ought to have kep' him Mare for the rest of his life. An' for Mare Livingstone, may never a blade o' grass or a green leaf grow on his grave."
The Senator beamed with secret pleasure, while the others began to talk together with a bitterness beyond Arthur's comprehension.
"He ought to have kept his feelings to himself," said quiet Anne. "If he didn't like the green, there was no need of insultin' us."
"And that wasn't the worst," Louis hotly added. "He gave a talk to the papers the next day, and told how many Irish paupers were in the poorhouse, and said how there must be an end to favoring the Irish."
"I saw that too," said Judy, "an' I sez to meself, sez I, he's wan o' the snakes St. Pathrick dhruv out of Ireland."
"No need for surprise," Mona remarked, studying her cards, "for the man has only one thought: to keep the Irish in the gutter. Do you suppose I would have been a teacher to-day if he could have kept me out of it, with all his pretended friendship for papa."
"If you baste the Mayor like this now, there won't be much left for me to do at the banquet," said Arthur with a laugh for their fierceness.
"Ay, there it is," said Judy. "Yez young Americans have no love for the green, except for the fun yez get out of it; barrin' dacint Louis here, who read the history of Ireland whin he was tin years old, an' niver got over it. Oh, yez may laugh away! Ye are all for the red, white, an' blue, till the Mare belts yez wid the red, white, an' blue, for he says he does everythin' in honor o' thim colors, though I don't see how it honors thim to insult the green. He may be a Livingshtone in name, but he's a dead wan for me."