"'Tare an' ouns!' says Tom, 'what'll become o' me if I'm to get shoes for
my cats?' says he, 'for you increase your family four times a year, and
you have six or seven every time,' says he; 'and then you must all have
two pair a piece--wirra! wirra!--I'll be ruined in shoe-leather,' says
Tom.

"'No more o' your stuff,' says the cat; 'don't be stand in' here undher
the hedge talkin', or we'll lose our karacthers--for I've remarked your
wife is jealous, Tom.'

"'Pon my sowl, that's thrue,' says Tom, with a smirk.

"'More fool she,' says the cat, 'for, 'pon my conscience, Tom, you're as
ugly as if you wor bespoke.'

"Off ran the cat with these words, leaving Tom in amazement. He said
nothing to the family, for fear of fright'ning them, and off he went to
the _town_ as he _pretended_--for he saw the cat watching him
through a hole in the hedge; but when he came to a turn at the end of the
road, the dickings a mind he minded the market, good or bad, but went off
to Squire Botherum's, the magisthrit, to sware examinations agen the cat."

"Pooh! pooh!--nonsense!!" broke in the little man, who had listened thus
far to Murtough with an expression of mingled wonder and contempt, while
the rest of the party willingly gave up the reins to nonsense, and enjoyed
Murtough's Legend and their companion's more absurd common sense.

"Don't interrupt him, Goggins," said Mister Wiggins.

"How can you listen to such nonsense?" returned Goggins. "Swear