"
"I am inclined to think, Mr. Keenan," said the schoolmaster, "that you
are in the habit occasionally of taking slight liberties wid the haythen
mythology. Little, I'll be bound, the divine goddess of beauty ever
dreamt she'd find a representative in Teddy Phats."
"Bravo! masther," replied Keenan, "you're the boy can do--only that
English is too tall for me. At any rate," he added, approaching the
worthy preceptor, "take a spell o' this--it's a language we can all
understand."
"You mane to say, Darby," returned the other, "that it's a kind of
universal spelling-book amongst us, and so it is--an alphabet aisily
larned. Your health, now and under all circumstances! Teddy, or
Thaddeus, I drink to your symmetry and inexplicable proportions; and
I say for your comfort, my worthy distillator, that if you are not so
refulgent in beauty as Venus, you are a purer haythen."
"Fwhat a bloody fwhine _Bairlha_ man the meeisther is," said Teddy, with
a grin. "Fwhaicks, meeisthur, your de posey of Tullyticklem, spishilly
wid Captain Fwhiskey at your back. You spake de Bairlha up den jist all
as one as nobody could understand her--ha, ha, ha!"
The master, whose name was Finigan, or, as he wished to be called,
O'Finigan, looked upon Teddy and shook his head very significantly.
"I'm afraid, my worthy distallator," he proceeded, "that the proverb
which says '_latet anguis in herba_,' is not inapplicable in your
case.
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