The reader must at once perceive that Peter here was only recovering himself from the effects of the injurious impression which his first admission was calculated to produce against him in the mind of his landlord.  “Tipsy!  No, no, sir; but the rason of it, sir, was this:  it bein’ my birthday, sir, I merely tuck a sup in the mornin’, in honor o’ the day.  It’s altogether a lucky day to me, sir!”

“Why, to be sure, every man’s birthday may, probably, be called such—­the gift of existence being, I fear, too much undervalued.”

“Bedad, your honor, I don’t mane that, at all.”

“Then what do you mean, Peter?”

“Why, sir, you see, it’s not that I was entirely born on this day, but partly, sir; I was marrid to Ellish here into the bargain,—­one o’ the best wives, sir—­however, I’ll say no more, as she’s to the fore herself.  But, death alive, sir, sure when we put both conclusions together—­myself bein’ sich a worthy man, and Ellish such a tip-top wife, who could blame me for smellin’ the bottle?—­for divil a much more I did—­about two glasses, sir—­an’ so it got up into my head a little when I was wid your honor to-day before.”

“But what is the amount of all this, Peter?”

“Why, sir, you see only I was as I said, Sir—­not tipsy, your honor, any way, but seein’ things double or so; an’ that was, I suppose, what made me offer for the farm double what I intinded.  Every body knows, sir, that the ‘crathur’ gives the big heart to us, any how, your honor.”

“But you know, Peter, we entered into no terms about it.  I, therefore, have neither power nor inclination to hold you to the offer you made.”

“Faith, sir, you’re not the gintleman to do a shabby turn, nor ever was, nor one o’ your family.  There’s not in all Europe”—­

Ellish, who was a point blank dealer, could endure Peter’s mode of transacting business no longer.  She knew that if he once got into the true spirit of applying the oil of flattery to the landlord, he would have rubbed him into a perfect froth ere he quitted him.  She, therefore, took up the thread of the discourse, and finished the compliment with much more delicacy than honest Peter could have displayed.

“Thrue for you, Pether,” she added; “there is not a kinder family to the poor, nor betther landlords in the country they live in.  Pether an’ myself, your honor, on layin’ both our ’heads together, found that he offered more rint for the land nor any! tenant could honestly pay.  So, sir, where’s the use of keepin’ back God’s truth—­Pether, sir”—­

Peter here trembled from an apprehension that the wife, in accomplishing some object of her own in reference to the land, was about to undeceive the landlord, touching the lie which he had so barefacedly palmed upon that worthy gentleman for truth.  In fact, his anxiety overcame his prudence, and he resolved to anticipate her.

“I’d advise you, sir,” said he, with a smile of significant good-humor, “to be a little suspicious of her, for, to tell the truth, she draws the”—­here he illustrated the simile with his staff—­“the long bow of an odd time; faith she does.  I’d kiss the book on the head of what I tould you, sir, plase your honor.  For the sacret of it is, that I tuck the moistare afore she left her bed.”