his black wings hiding the sky, and a long streak of lightning for a spear in his fist, but Ould Nick.
“ ‘Brian Connors, how long are you going to be down-throdden and thrajooced and looked down upon—you and your subjects?’ says he.
“ ‘Faix, thin, who’s doing that to us?’ asks Thady, standing up and growing excited.
“ ‘Why,’ says Ould Nick, ‘were you made little pigmies to be the laugh and the scorn and the mock of the whole world?’ he says, very mad; ‘why weren’t you made into angels, like the rest of us?’ he says.
“ ‘Musha,’ cries Thady, ‘I never thought of that.’
“ ‘Are you a man or a mouse; will you fight for your rights?’ says Sattin. ‘If so, come with me and be one of us. For we’ll bate them black and blue to-morrow!’ he says. Thady needed no second axing.
“ ‘I’ll go with ye, Sattin, me dacent man,’ cried he. ‘Wirra! Wirra! To think of how down-throdden we are!’ And with one spring Thady was on Ould Nick’s chowlders, and the two flew away like a humming-bird riding on the back of an aygle.
“ ‘Take care of yerself, Brian,’ says Thady, ‘and come over to see the fight; I’m to be in it, and I extind you the inwitation,’ he says.
