f? Phup-um-phup--
phup-um-phup--phup-um--phup-um--phup-um-phup. Who but a
first-rate genius could accomplish this feat in such a
style? Bob could crow like a cock, bark like a dog, mew like
a cat, neigh like a horse, bray like an ass, or gobble like
a turkey-cock. Unquestionably, I have never heard him
equalled as an imitator of birds and beasts. Bob's crack
feat, however, was performing the Screw-pin Dance, of which
we have only this to say, that by whatsoever means he became
acquainted with it, it is precisely the same dance which is
said to have been exhibited by some strolling Moor before
the late Queen Caroline. It is, indeed, very strange, but no
less true, that many of the oriental customs are yet
prevalent in the remote and isolated parts of Ireland. Had
the late Mr. O'Brien, author of the Essay on Irish Round
Towers, seen Bob perform the dance I speak of, he would have
hailed him as a regular worshipper of Budh, and adduced his
performance as a living confirmation of his theory. Poor
Bob! he is gone the way of all fools, and all flesh.

"Indeed, childher, it's no wonder for yez to enquire! Where did I get
him, Dick?--musha, and where would I get him but in the ould place,
a-hagur; with the ould set: don't yez know that a dacent place or dacent
company wouldn't sarve Ned?--nobody but Shane Martin, and Jimmy Tague,
and the other blackguards."*

* The reader, here, is not to rely implicitly upon the
accuracy of Nancy's description of the persons alluded to.
It is true the men were certainly companions and intimate
acquaintances of Ned's, but not entitled to the epithet
which Nancy in her wrath bestowed upon them. Shane was a
rollicking fighting, drinking butcher, who cared not a fig!
whether he treated you to a drink or a drubbing, indeed, it
was at all times extremely difficult to say whether he was
likely to give you the drink first or the drubbing
afterwards, or vice versa. Sometimes he made the drubbing
the groundwork for the drink and quite as frequently the
drink the groundwork for the drubbing. Either one or other
you were sure to receive at his hands; but his general
practice was to give both. Shane, in fact, was a good-
humored fellow, well liked, and nobody's enemy but his own.
Jemmy Tague was a quiet man, who could fight his corner,