"I asked the
master if it wor, and he said it worn't."
"Faith, thin, and he says it hisself, I'm thinkin'," half asked the
mother, with a shrewd twinkle of her gray eyes. Teddy faltered and
blushed, but answered manfully,--
"No, he don't; and he said it was low and vulgar to talk that way;
and I don't, only by times."
"Well, thin, Teddy, see that yer don't, only thim times whin yer
hears the masther do it forninst ye: thin it'll be time enough for
ye. And don't ye be forgettin', b'y, that ye're bound to be a
gintleman afore ye die. It was what yer poor daddy said when yer wor
born, a twelvemonth arter we landed here. 'There, Judy,' says he,
'there's a native-born 'Merican for yees, wid as good a right to be
Prisidint as the best ov 'em. Now, don't yer let him grow up a
Paddy, wid no more brains nor a cow or a horse. Make a gintleman,
an' a 'Merican gintleman, of the spalpeen; an' shtrike hands on it
now.'
"'Troth, thin, Michael alanna, an' it's a bargain,' says I, an',
wake as I wor, give him me fist out ov the bed; an' he shuk it
hearty. An', though Michael died afore the year wor out, the promise
I'd made him stood; an' it's more ways than iver ye'll know, Teddy
Ginniss, I've turned an' twisted to kape ye dacent, an' kape ye out
ov the streets, niver forgittin' for one minute that Michael had
towld me there was the makin's of a gintleman in yees, an' that he'd
left it to me to work it out.
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