No, stop: I forgot his birrd." "His bird! Does he keep a bird ?" "The young ruffian! he's making sport of me," said the lady.

"I said birrd: b-e-a-r-d, birrd.

And it's all tinged grey and black.

That's your father." "And the girls ?" "Oh, just two bright sun-browned colleens, like you, only better looking.

What next ?" "What sort of a place is it ?" "Place?
Oh, there's a wooden house on a slope looking down a bluff at the edge of a great plain, from which you look over the Blue Mountains." "Yes, they call them blue because they're green, I suppose ?" said Nic, with a smile.
"And people say it's only we Irish who make bulls," cried the lady merrily.