HUGH PAT : Arthur! The boul' man! How's she cuttin'?

ARTHUR : Reasonable to middlin'. Yourself?

HUGH PAT : Can't complain. Man dear, but thon's a quare colour you have on your oul' cheeks.

ARTHUR : I've just been down to the sea-side with the cousin.

HUGH PAT : The sea's the boy would put a glow on you, right enough, and a quare snot in you forbye. Any reason for the journey?

ARTHUR : Divil a one. Just seein' what the oul' crack was.

HUGH PAT : Did you stay there long?

ARTHUR : Just a while. Then we took a tram.

HUGH PAT : I take it you saw hardly a crayter out and about on a day like this?

ARTHUR : Now there's where you'd be wrong, Hugh Pat. If we didn't meet a scra of soldiers.

HUGH PAT : Get away!

ARTHUR : Aye. Oul' Sergeant Harper and thon awr gulpin, Corporal Cram. And some wee gawpshite wi' a drum. Batterin' away like a buck-eejit.

HUGH PAT : I s'pose they hardly dared look at you?

ARTHUR : Look? They were at the oul' chattin'. Says yer man. "Fine heathy pair of boys that y'are. The army could do wi' a pair of upstandin' characters like yourselves in it. And there's quare money in the oul' soldierin'. A bob up front and a guinea to come."

HUGH PAT : That's quare wages, right enough. Were you tempted?

ARTHUR : Was I what?! Says I to him "If I took you oul' money, next thing you know you'd have me on a boat over to France and I'd be dead before the week was out." Oh, I know their oul' game!

HUGH PAT : So I take it he left youse in peace after thon?

ARTHUR : It would have been better for him if he had. But damn the bit of it! Effin' and blindin'. Next thing you know he's got his oul' sword out and swingin' it round his oul' head and threatenin' all sorts.

HUGH PAT : Thon would have put the fear o' God in you, I dare say!

ARTHUR : Divil the fear! I looks at the oul' cousin and gives him a wink. Says I to myself "If it's a fight you're after, then no better men!" And out wi' the oul blackthorns, the pair of us. I took the oul' Corporal and the cousin faces the Sergeant. Cowped the pair o' them we did!

HUGH PAT : What about the wee lad?

ARTHUR : Shitin' himself, he was. But says I "C'mere you wee skitter!" And grabs thon oul' drum aff him and - SPLASH - bucks it into the sea. Says I "It'll be a while before you're drummin' thon oul yoke!" And we lifted him up, head over heels and shook him down. The money that feel out o' thon wee halllion's pockets! Six bob and a few coppers. I reckon he was dioin' a bit o' knockin' in the officers' quarters.

HUGH PAT : Fair play to him, then, all the same! Thon's a quare wee pile!

ARTHUR : It is, in sowl and the cousin and me's for the pub tonight to drink the proceeds.

HUGH PAT : You're a hard chaw, McBride!

ARTHUR : Divil a one harder!

HUGH PAT : G'luck now. And have one on me!

ARTHUR : I will, in sowl!