“Why, yes, yer highness,” says Jack, “I have a thriflin’ wee word to say.”

“An’ what is it?” says the king. “Out with it, man, and don’t be backward about it.”

“Why,” says Jack, pullin’ out the king’s shirt from undher his coat, “it’s only this—there’s yer shirt stolen off yer back, although ye slept in yer clothes and a shoot of mail, and with a senthry at ivery window, and two at ivery door, and yer bedroom filled with sojers, and I have left another shirt on yer back.”

The king looked at the shirt and read his name on it, and, turnin’ nine colours at wanst, he peeled off him again, and takin’ off his inside shirt he read on the inside of the breast of it:—

“Sould again, ould brick!

This is my third thrick—

The shirt taken off yer back

By MASTHER-THIEF JACK.“

The king was thundher-struck, and no wondher! He ups and he says at wanst, just as soon as he got his senses gathered:—

“Jack,” says he, “you must lave my dominions, for I’m not sure but ye might stale the very teeth out of my head, if ye only took the notion. I’m sorry, indeed, Jack, but go ye must. At the same time I’ll threat ye daicent—ye’ll have as much gold with ye as yer pockets can hould.”

“Thank ye for nothin’,” says Jack back to him, “for I could have that if yer highness was to put it undher all the locks in the kingdom. But I have one requist to ask ye afore I go.”

“Name it, Jack,” says the king.

“Will ye see that me ould father nivir wants for anything while he lives?”

“Troth, I will that, Jack, for I’ll take him up to the castle to live along with myself; he’ll get aitin’ and dhrinkin’ of the best; he’ll not be asked to do a hand’s turn of work, and he’ll be as happy as the day is long.”

Jack thanked the king hearty, and set out on his thravels. He went back to the country he was ’prenticed in, and as his ould masther had just died, Jack was appointed Masther-man-thief of that whole counthry, and lived happy and well ivir afther.

Manis the Besom Man

ONCE on a time when pigs was swine, long, long ago, there was a man named Manis who supported himself and his ould disabled mother by making besoms out of the long heather on the lonely moor where they lived. One day, when Manis was driving a very sorry old institution of a horse—that you could count every bone in his body through his skin—to the town, with a load of besoms for sale, he begun to ruminate to himself on the bad trade this same besom-making was becoming, entirely, that he could hardly keep body and sowl sticking together himself, let alone support his mother and an old horse, that would soon die on his hands anyway; and then he’d be in a fix, for he couldn’t scrape as much money together as would buy a new straddle, let alone a new horse. And, as for selling this one, it’s what he’d have to pay a man to take him off his hands, let alone get money for him. But it’s a bad disaise that can’t be cured somehow, Manis said to himself—so he began to consider how he could sell his rickle of a pony to advantage. Manis had about as clever a head as ever was set on ignorant shoulders—and right well he knew this—and he was not long finding a way out of the pickle. When he went to the town and disposed of his besoms, and got the money for them, he put the money into shilling pieces, half-crown pieces, and one half-sovereign, and inquiring for the grandest hotel, he put his horse into the stable, and stuck the gold half-sovereign and all the other pieces into the holes in its hide—for the poor baste’s skin had holes enough to hide away a fortune in, goodness knows!—slipping them just what you’d know in under the skill, and then he went into the hotel, and ordered the best of everything, eating and drinking for himself, and as for the horse, he told them not to spare the corn and bran mashes on him, for he was going to put him into training for a great race. Manis got all he called for, and the horse, too, got everything of the best, and that all fared well till it came to the paying of the bill, which reached a big figure entirely. When the bill was put before him, Manis said he would call again and pay it; that he had no ready cash about him now, and all that; but the waiters raised the divil of a ruction, and sent for the owner of the hotel himself, who happened to be Mayor over the town; and they pointed out Manis to him, and told him the whole story, and the Mayor said that if Manis didn’t take and pay the money on that instant moment, he would send for the soldiers and have him hung by coort-martial at once.

“Well, well,” sez Manis, sez he, “but this is a nice how-do-ye-do, that a gintleman can’t be trusted for a few shillings, only this way. Sweet good luck to you and your house,” sez he to the Mayor. “I never yet in all my travels met with such ondaicent people. Though I have a shabby coat on me atself,” sez Manis, “don’t judge me by that, for that’s my notion, and it’s the way I choose to go. And look ye here now, Misther Mayor,” sez he, “I could not only pay for my own dinner, but I could invite every mother’s sowl in this town—good, bad, and ondifferent, big, wee, and middling—here, and give them their dinners and pay for them, and buy you out of house and home then, and make a present of the whole consarn to your waiter there the next minute, and live as ondependent as a prence still after,” sez Manis. “But if you must be paid for your hungry bit of a dinner that wouldn’t break a man’s fast on a Good Friday, ye must. I left my purse behind me at home, and I didn’t just want to abuse my poor baste now, seeing he’s afther a long journey; but to stop your throat I’ll do anything, so here goes.” And with that Manis plants his hat on his head and away out to the stables, with the Mayor and all the waiters after him to see what he was up to at all, at all.

Manis led out the pony to the yard, and telling the crowd to stand off him, he got the pony by the head with one hand, and with a stick in the other he struck the horse’s ribs just beside the place he hid the half-sovereign, and the horse flung up as well as he was able—bekase for six years afore he never had the spirit to fling till he got the feed of corn and bran—and out jumps the goold half-sovereign, and rolls just right to the Mayor’s feet. The Mayor looked down at it bewildered.

“Will ye kindly,” sez Manis, sez he, in an offhand sort of way to the Mayor, “will yer Mayorship kindly pick up that coin and tell me how much it is?”

The Mayor picked it up, and he looked at it, and he turned it over and looked at the other side, and then jingled it on the ground, and next bit it with his teeth.

“Well, by all that’s infarnal,” sez he, “but it’s a good shining goold half-sovereign,” sez he, “with the King’s head on it.”

“Humph!” sez Manis, sez he, “is that all? That’s not enough then, we must try again.”

So Manis whacked the horse again, and again, and again; and the horse flung up again, and again, and again; and the coins come jumping out, rolling among the waiters, and them picking them up and shouting out every time how much they were. When Manis got enough to pay the bill,—

“Now,” sez he, “when I have my hand on him, I may as well take the price of a box of matches and a hit of tobacco out of him,” and he flogged out another couple of half-crowns, the Mayor and the waiters looking on with their mouths open and rubbing their eyes every now and then to see whether it was asleep or awake they were. When Manis had finished, and had all the pieces flogged out of him except a couple, he yoked him into the cart as if he was going to start.

“I say, my good man,” sez the Mayor, when he got his breath with him—“I say, my good man,” sez he, “would you sell that horse?”

“Is it sell him?” sez Manis, sez he. “Not by no means.”