hen I'll
talk to you,' says he.

"'Why, for that matter,' says the Gubbaun, 'it's a while ago we eat
our dinner,' says he, 'and if it's all the same to you, we'll be glad
if you'll set us some piece of work that we can be at till you come
back.' And just then, sir, the dinner-bell began to ring. 'Well,
gentleman,' says the steward, laughin' out loud, an' turnin' up his
nose, an' winkin' round to the rest of the men, since you are so
impatient, an' sich wonderful men, just sit down here, and take that
block of marble,' says he, 'and have a cat an' two tails made out of
it when I come back,' says he, runnin' into dinner.

"Well, sir, it was a fine block of stone, sure enough, and likely,
rale Kilkenny marble; but it was any thing like a Kilkenny cat they
med, for they never stopped until they had a splendid cat, wid two
noble tails carved out, and all this before the lazy steward and his
men came back from their dinner; and what was the most astonishin' to
all, the surprisin' fierce pair of whiskers that the Gubbaun was
puttin' out from the cat's nose when the steward came out! But who
should be along with him but the King of Munster himself; and when he
saw the cat, and the two tails, and the warlike pair of whiskers, he
was all but ready to split with the laughin', and when he got words at
last, he never stopped praisin' the Gubbaun.

"'But,' says the King of Munster, turning round to the unfortunate
steward, (that hadn't one word to say,) 'you scoundrel! your intention
was to make game of this honest man, and now he has done in one hour,
what you wouldn't do if you were to live as long as that cat would
last; and it's _he_, and not _you_, that has the best right to be
steward here,' says he. So the Gubbaun was appointed steward over all
the palace; and it was he that made all the ornaments, and all the
images and statues that was in the place intirely, he and Boofun; and
the King of Munster grew fonder and fonder of him every day.

"But, sir, in the course of time the king got curious notions into his
head, and the worst was, that at last he determined that his palace
should not only be the finest and grandest in all Ireland, but what
was worse for the Gubbaun, he resolved that as soon as all was
finished, he would put an end to the poor fellow's life, and
particularly because he had lately found out that the King of Leinster
had heard of his beautiful palace, and that he intended to send for
the Gubbaun and const