he removed it apologetically.

"It smells horrible, I know. I found it, forgotten, on a ledge of the
stable, but it keeps a chap from remembering that he is hungry."

"Poor lad!" Patsy knelt on the ground beside him and opened her
basket. "Put your nose into that, just. 'Tis a nine-course dinner and
every bit of the best. Faith! 'tis lucky I was found on a Brittany
rose-bush instead of one in Heidelberg, Birmingham, or Philadelphia;
and if ye can't be born with gold in your mouth the next best thing
is a mixing-spoon."

"Meaning?" queried the tinker.

"Meaning--that there's many a poor soul who goes hungry through life
because she is wanting the knowledge of how to mix what's already
under her nose."

The tinker looked suspiciously from the contents of the basket to
Patsy, kneeling beside it, and he dropped into a shameless mimicry of
her brogue. "Aye, but how did she come by--what's under her nose?
Here's a dinner for a king's son."

"Well, I'll be letting ye play the king's son instead of the fool
to-night, just, if ye'll give over asking any more questions and
eat."

"But"--he sniffed the plate she had handed him with added
suspicion--"roast duck and sherry sauce! Honest, now--have ye been
begging?"

"No--nor stealing--nor, by the same token, have I murdered any one to
get the dinner from him." There was fine sarcasm in her voice as she
returned the tinker's searching look.

"Then where did it come from? I'll not eat a mouthful until I get an
honest answer." The tinker put the plate down beside him and folded
his arms.

Patsy snorted with exasperation. "Was I ever saying ye could play the
king's son? Faith! ye'll never play anything but the fool--first and
last." Her voice suddenly took on a more coaxing tone; she was
thinking of that good dinner growing cold--spoiled by the man's
ridiculous curiosity. "I'll tell ye what--if ye'll agree to begin
eating, I'll agree to begin telling ye about it--and we'll both agree
not to stop till we get to the end. But Holy Saint Martin! who ever
heard of a man before letting his conscience in ahead of his hunger!"

The bargain was made; and while the tinker devoured one plateful
after another with a ravenous haste that almost discredited his
previous restraint, Patsy spun a fanciful tale of having found a
cluricaun under a quicken-tree. With great elaboration and seeming
regard for the truth, she explained his magical qualities, and
how--if you were clever enough t