Barney Casey, the honest man, gives me a crown for baptising his child, and tin minutes afther I must give that same money to a blaggard!”
Well, whin Mulligan heard that his own little Patsy had been baptised agin at the instigation of that owdacious imposthure, Barney Casey, the ballad-maker’s neck swelled with rage. But worse was to come. Gulping a great lump down his throat he axed:
“What name did your riverence give the baby?”
There was a thremble in the poor man’s woice.
“Bonyface,” says the priest, his toe in the stirrup. “To-day is the feast of St. Bonyface, a gr-r-reat bishop. He was a German man,” says Father Scanlan.
The groan Tom Mulligan let out of him was heart-rendering. “Bonyface! Oh, my poor little Patsy; bad scran to you, Barney Casey! My own child turned into a German man—oh, Bonyface!”
The priest was too busy mounting his horse to hear what the ballad-maker said, but just before starting the good man turned in his saddle.
“I came near forgetting my errant,” he says. “There’s a little ould man—dwarves they call the
