e; that nobody could help dancing
when he was playing it. Begonies, he made the big faggot dance home,
with himself sitting on it. The next giant was a beautiful boy with
three heads on him. He had neither prayers nor catechism no more nor
the others; and so he gave Tom a bottle of green ointment, that
wouldn't let you be burned, nor scalded, nor wounded. "And now," says
he, "there's no more of us. You may come and gather sticks here till
little Lunacy Day in Harvest, without giant or fairy-man to disturb
you."

Well, now, Tom was prouder nor ten paycocks, and used to take a walk
down street in the heel of the evening; but some o' the little boys had
no more manners than if they were Dublin jackeens, and put out their
tongues at Tom's club and Tom's goat-skin. He didn't like that at all,
and it would be mean to give one of them a clout. At last, what should
come through the town but a kind of a bellman, only it's a big bugle he
had, and a huntsman's cap on his head, and a kind of a painted shirt.
So this--he wasn't a bellman, and I don't know what to call
him--bugleman, maybe, proclaimed that the King of Dublin's daughter was
so melancholy that she didn't give a laugh for seven years, and that
her father would grant her in marriage to whoever could make her laugh
three times.

"That's the very thing for me to try," says Tom; and so, without
burning any more daylight, he kissed his mother, curled his club at the
little boys, and off he set along the yalla highroad to the town of
Dublin.

At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed and
cursed at him instead of letting him in. Tom stood it all for a little
time, but at last one of them--out of fun, as he said--drove his
bayonet half an inch or so into his side. Tom done nothing but take the
fellow by the scruff o' the neck and the waistband of his corduroys,
and fling him into the canal. Some run to pull the fellow out, and
others to let manners into the vulgarian with their swords and daggers;
but a tap from his club sent them headlong into the moat or down on the
stones, and they were soon begging him to stay his hands.

So at last one of them was glad enough to show Tom the way to the
palace-yard; and there was the king, and the queen, and the princess,
in a gallery, looking at all sorts of wrestling, and sword-playing, and
long-dances, and mumming, all to please the princess; but not a smile
came over her handsome face.

Well, they all stop