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noster out of his prayer book, wherein all our names are writen; so much for a stop-hold to my gun, to bucklers, to a pair of comical harn hose, with leather buttons from top to toe; and worst of all, he would have no less than a penny, a-week to a doctor; arra, said I, I never had a sore finger nor yet a sick toe, all the days of my life, then what have I to do with the doctor or the doctor to do with me?
Tom. And he did make you pay all these things?
Teag. Ay, ay, pay and better pay! he took me, before his captain, who bid me pay all was in his book. Arra, master captain, said I, you are a comical sort of a fellow now, you might as well make me pay for my coffin before I be dead, as to pay for a doctor before I be sick; to which he answered in a passion, sir, said he, I have seen many a better man buried without a coffin: sir, said I then I'll have a coffin die when I will, if there be as much wood in all the world, or I shall not be buried at all. Then he called for the sergeant, saying, you, sir, go and buy that man's coffin, and put it in the store till he die, and stop sixpence a-week of his pay for it: no, no, sir, said I, I'll rather die without a coffin, and seek none when I'm dead, but if you are for clipping another sixpence off my pay, keep it all to yourself, and I'll swear all your oaths of agreement we had back again, and then seek soldiers where you will.
Tom. O then Paddy, how did you end the matter?
Teag. Arra, dear shoy, by the nights of shaint Patrick and help of my brogues, I both ended it and mended it, for the next night before that, I gave them leg bail for my fidelity, and went about the country a fortune teller dumb and deaf as I was not.
Tom. How old was you, Paddy, when you was a soldier last?
Teag. Arra, dear honey, I was thrce dozen all but two, and it is only two years since, so I want only four years of three dozen yet, & when I live six dozen more, I'll be older than I am, I'll warrant you.
