sy stamped her foot. "Why can't you play fair? Isn't it only
decent to tell who you are and what you were doing on the road when I
found you?"

"You know as well as I what I was doing--hanging onto the stump and
trying to gather my wits. And don't you think it would be nicer if
you talked Irish? It doesn't make a lad feel half as comfortable or
as much at home when he is addressed in such perfect English."

Patsy snorted. "In a minute I'll not be addressing you at all. Do you
think, if I had known you were what you are, I would ever have been
so--so brazen as to ask for your company and tramp along with you
for--_two_ days--or be here, now? Oh!" she finished, with a groan and
a fierce clenching of her fists.

"No, I don't think so. That's why I didn't hurry about gathering up
the wits; it seemed more sociable without them. I wouldn't have
bothered with them now, only I couldn't stay in those rags any
longer; it wouldn't have been kind to the furniture or the people who
own it. These togs were the only things that came anywhere near to
fitting me; and, somehow, a three-days' beard didn't match them.
Lucky for me, Heaven blessed the house with a good razor, and,
presto! when the beard and the rags were gone the wits came back. I'm
awfully sorry if you don't like them--the wits, I mean."

"Sure, ye must be!" Unconsciously Patsy had stepped back onto her
native sod and her tongue fairly dripped with irony. "So ye thought
ye'd have a morsel o' fun at the expense of a strange lass, while ye
laughed up your sleeve at how clever ye were."

"See here! don't be too hard, please! That foolishness was real
enough; I had just been knocked over the head by the kind gentleman
from whom I borrowed the rags. I paid him a tidy sum for the use of
them, and evidently he thought it was a shame to leave me burdened
with the balance of my money. Arguing wouldn't have done any good, so
he took the simplest way--just sandbagged me and--"

"Was it much money?"

"Mercy, no! Just a few dollars, hardly worth the anaesthesia."

"And ye were--half-witted, then?"

"Half? A bare sixteenth! It wasn't until afternoon--until we reached
the church at the cross-roads--that I really came into full
possession--" The sentence trailed off into an inexplicable grin.

"And after that, 'twas I played the fool." Patsy's eyes kindled.

The tinker grew serious; he dug his hands deep into his capacious
white flannels as if he were very much in earnest. "C