Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/192

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THE BANSHEE’S COMB

tintedness that they fairly thrampled down one another to be first in praising the wondherful men of their choice. Every woman proudly claimed to own an’ conthrol the handsomest, loikeliest man that ever throd in brogues.

They talked so fast an’ they talked so loud that ’twas a thryin’ long while before meek-woiced little Margit Doyle could squeege her husband, Dan’l John, sideways into the argyment. An’ even when she did get him to the fore, the other women had appropryated all the hayroic qualifications for their own men, so that there was nothing left for Dan’l but the common lavings; an’ that dayprivation nettled Margit an’ vexed her sore. But she took her chanst when it came, poor as it was, an’ boulted in.

Jabbing the air as though her needle were a dagger, she broke into the discoorse.

“I wouldn’t thrade my Dan for the King of Rooshia or the Imperor of Chiney,” says she, peering dayfiant around the room. No one sided with that ray mark, an’ no one argyed agin it, an’ this vexed her the more.

“The Kingdom of Chiney is where the most supharior tay comes from,” says Caycelia Crow. She

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