Counsellor Dan and Biddy Moriarty

O’Connell: “What is the price of this walking stick, Mrs. What’s-your name?”

Biddy: “Moriarty, sir, is my name, and a good one it is, and what have you to say agen it? And one-and-sixpence’s the price of the stick. Throth, it’s chape as dirt—so it is.”

O’Connell: “One-and-sixpence for a walking stick, Whew! Why you are no better than an imposter, to ask eighteen pence for what cost you twopence.”

“Twopence your grandson,” replied Mrs. Biddy, “do you mane to say that it’s chating the people I am?—imposter, indeed!”

“Aye, imposter; and it’s that I call you to your teeth,” rejoined O’Connell.

“Come cut your stick, you cantankerous jackanapes.”

“Keep a civil tongue in your head, you old diagonal,” cried O’Connell calmly.

“Stop your jaw, you pug-nosed badger or by this and that,” cried Mrs. Moriarty, “I’ll make you go quicker nor you came.”

“Don’t be in a passion, my old radius—anger will only wrinkle your beauty.”

“By the hokey, if you say another word of impudence, I’ll tan your dirty hide you hastely common scrub; and sorry I’d be to soil my fists upon your carcase!”

“Whew! boys, what a passion old Biddy is in; I protest as I’m a gentleman!—”

“Jintleman! jintleman, the likes of you a jintleman! Wisha, by gor, that bangs Banagher. Why, you potato-faced pippin-sneezer, when did a Madagascar monkey like you pick enough of common Christian dacency to hide your Kerry brogue?”

“Easy now—easy now,” cried O’Connell with imperturbable good humour, “don’t choke yourself with fine language, you old whiskey-drinking parellelogram.”

“What’s that you call me, you murderin’ villain?” roared Mrs. Moriarty stung to fury.

“I call you,” answered O’Connell, “a parellelogram and a Dublin judge and jury will say that it’s no libel to call you so.”

“Oh, tare-an ouns! oh, holy Biddy! that an honest woman like me should be called a parrybellygrums, you rascally gallows-bird; you cowardly sneaking, plate-lickin’ bliggard!”

“Oh, not you indeed!” retorted O’Connell, “why I suppose you’ll deny that you keep a hypotheneuse in your house!”

“It’s a lie for you, you bloody robber, I never had such a thing in my house, you swindling thief.”

“Why, sure your neighbors all know very well that you keep not only a hypotheneuse but that you have two diameters locked up in your garret and that you go out to walk with them every Sunday, you heartless old heptagon!”

“Oh, hear that ye saints in glory! Oh, there’s bad language from a fellow that wants to pass for a jintleman. May the divil fly away with you, you micher from Munster, and make celery-sauce of your rotten limbs, you mealy-mouthed tub of guts.”

“Ah, you can’t deny the charge, you miserable submultiple of a duplicate ratio.”

“Go rinse your mouth in the Liffey, you nasty ticklepitcher; after all the bad words you speak, it ought to be filthier than your face, you dirty chicken of Beelzebub!”

“Rinse your own mouth, you wicked-minded old polygon to the deuce I pitch you, you blustering intersection of a stinking superficies!”

“You saucy tinker’s apprentice, if you don’t cease your jaw I’ll—” But here she gasped for breath unable to hawk up any more words for the last volley of O’Connell’s had nearly knocked the wind out of her.

“While I have a tongue I’ll abuse you. You most inimitable periphery. Look at her boys! there she stands—a convicted perpendicular in petticoats. There’s contamination in her circumference and she trembles with guilt down to the extremities of her corollories. Ah, you’re found out, you rectilineal antecedent and equiangular old hag! ’Tis with you the devil will fly away you porter-swiping similitude of the bisection of a vortex.”

Overwhelmed with this torrent of language, Mrs. Moriarty was silenced. Catching up a saucepan, she was aiming at O’Connell’s head when he very prudently made a timely retreat.