Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 10

"They're not mine," she declared stoutly. "I bought them for you."

"Very good of you, miss; but what would I be wanting with 'em, when I be selling 'em?"

Paddy looked perplexed. "Whose in the world are they?" she asked doubtfully. "They're not mine--and they're not yours--I give it up."

"Begorra! I'm shure I dunno, miss," and Patrick fell to scratching his head in great perplexity; "but it seems as if, seeing I sold 'em and you bought 'em--"

"But I bought them for you."

"But if I was selling 'em, how could I want for to buy 'em?"

"If Patrick doesn't want them," put in Jack, "of course you must take them home, Paddy. I'll help you drive them."

"Oh! don't be an idiot!" stamping her foot. "They don't belong to me."

"But you've just said you bought them."

"I didn't."

"You did; you said you had bought them for Patrick."

Paddy stamped her foot more impatiently still and grew more perplexed.

"Share, and it's beyond me," and Patrick fell again to his head-scratching. "If you bought 'em it seems as if they ought to be yours, don't it?"

Paddy looked round with a worried air, and at that dreadful moment descried Lawrence, in the very act of dodging two small pigs that had escaped their owner and were making tracks back to the wagon as fast as they could go. She signalled to him, and he came up at once.

"I don't know what's happened to Newry," he said, "but every third person seems to have acquired a small pig. I've been dodging them for the last half-hour. They're all over everywhere."

Jack began to chuckle in a most annoying manner.

"Paddy's bought fifteen," he said.

"I haven't. Be quiet, you--you--great, silly clown."

"Now, don't get cross, Paddy," soothingly; "and you've said so many times that you did buy them that it sounds dreadfully like a fib."

Paddy looked as if she were not quite sure whether to laugh or cry, and Lawrence asked:

"What's the matter, Paddy? Why does he say you've bought fifteen pigs?"

"It's just this way--" began poor Paddy.

"The real trouble," put in Jack, "is that Patrick O'Grady doesn't know whether he's been _selling_ pigs or, buying them, and Paddy doesn't know whether she's been _buying_ pigs or selling them. For the last two hours they've been doing both in a sort of cycle, and now they're left with fifteen on their hands, and we want a Solomon to say who they belong to," and he exploded again.

"If you don't shut up, Jack--I'll--I'll throw a pig at your head," said Paddy furiously.

"And I offered to help you drive them home," in an aggrieved voice.

"I'll help instead," volunteered Lawrence. "I'm a positive genius at pig-driving."

"Or I could take them to The Ghan House on my way back," said Patrick cheerfully.

"But they're not mine, I tell you. I don't want the things. What in the world could I do with fifteen pigs?"

"They certainly wouldn't be very nice in your bedroom, and I don't see where else you could hide them," put in Jack.

"Come, what's it all about?--don't mind him," as Paddy again looked furiously at her tormentor. "Perhaps I can help?"

Wherewith, turning her back on the delinquent, who continued to chuckle audibly, Paddy related the history of the fifteen pigs, and the Gordian knot she and Patrick had managed to tie between them.

Lawrence had a good laugh--not the least at Paddy's mystified air as to whether she had bought the pigs or not--and then he n.o.bly offered to solve the difficulty by taking them off her hands.

"You can take them to the Mourne Lodge farm," he told the no less bewildered Patrick, "and call for the money in the morning."

Paddy was instantly all smiles. "And don't forget my commission, Pat!"

she cried.

"Your commission was for _selling_," was Jack's parting shot. "You _bought_ these, so you can't claim it."

"Let's all go and have coffee at the cafe," suggested Lawrence. And ten minutes later Paddy and Jack were again chuckling uproariously over the relation of the whole episode from first to last.

And it was then that Paddy, under the spell of a certain sense of grat.i.tude, decided Lawrence was very nice when he liked, and, of course, if Eileen was growing to care for him, and thought she would be happy with him, it was no use worrying about things. It was, of course, too much to expect that Lawrence could do other than love Eileen if she would let him.

CHAPTER NINE.

CONCERNING A SUPPER-DANCE.

As the date fixed for the great dance drew near, no other topic of conversation was of any real interest. Even the two little ladies at the Parsonage got quite excited over it, and confided to Paddy and Eileen one afternoon, that they were each having new dresses on purpose.

"Oh! how splendid!" Paddy cried ecstatically; "do tell us what they are like."

"Black silk," said Miss Jane. "And Honiton lace," added Miss Mary.

"Lovely!" cried Paddy. "I am certain you will be the belles of the ball. No one will look at Eileen and me."

"Nonsense, my dear," shaking her head; "two old things like Mary and myself belles of the ball indeed! No, no; you and Eileen will be that, and we shall rejoice to see it."

"Now you are sarcastic, auntie," shaking a threatening finger at her; "as if any belle of a ball ever had a sallow skin and snub nose like mine. No, if I am a belle at all it will have to be from a back view only. I really do think my hair is prettier than Eileen's, so with the front of her and the back of me, we ought to carry off the palm."

"What about Kathleen and Doreen?" put in Eileen, "they have improved wonderfully."

"Yes, and their dresses were bought in Paris. It's not fair," and Paddy pulled a face. "We all ought to have started equally with dresses made in Ireland."

"My dear, dress makes very little difference," said little Miss Mary; "expression and manner are everything, and Kathleen and Doreen, though charming girls, are both a little stiff at present. I haven't a doubt your programmes will be full almost before you are in the ball-room."

"I guess so," said Paddy mischievously. "I've promised twice the number of dances there are already, but as I've forgotten who they were all to, it doesn't matter. I am thinking of arriving with two boards like a sandwich man, and on one side I shall have in large letters 'Please note all previous engagements cancelled,' and on the other 'Book early as a great rush is antic.i.p.ated.'"