“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.”

“I would not hurt you, little man,' he said.'I think that I got the disorder in Mullingar,' I explained. I knew that I had gained his confidence and that the danger of violence was now passed. He then did something which took me by surprise. He pulled up his own ragged trouser and showed me his own left leg. It was smooth, shapely and fairly fat but it was made of wood also.'That is a funny coincidence,' I said. I now perceived the reason for his sudden change of attitude.'You are a sweet man,' he responded, 'and I would not lay a finger on your personality. I am the captain of all the one-legged men in the country. I knew them all up to now except one—your own self—and that one is now also my friend into the same bargain. If any man looks at you sideways, I will rip his belly.''That is very friendly talk,' I said.'Wide open,' he said, making a wide movement with his hands. 'If you are ever troubled, send for me and I will save you from the woman.''Women I have no interest in at all,' I said smiling. 'A fiddle is a better thing for diversion.''It does not matter. If your perplexity is an army or a dog, I will come with all the one-leggèd men and rip the bellies. My real name is Martin Finnucane.''It is a reasonable name,' I assented.'Martin Finnucane,' he repeated, listening to his own voice as if he were listening to the sweetest music in the world.”

“Do you know what I am going to tell you, he said with his wry mouth, a pint of plain is your only man.Notwithstanding this eulogy, I soon found that the mass of plain porter bears an unsatisfactory relation to its toxic content and I subsequently became addicted to brown stout in bottle, a drink which still remains the one that I prefer the most despite the painful and blinding fits of vomiting which a plurality of bottles has often induced in me.”

“I cannot say whether there is fur on my wife's legs for I have never seen them nor do I intend to commit myself to the folly of looking at them. In any event and in all politeness -nothing would be further from me than to insult a guest- I deem the point you have made as unimportant because there is surely nothing in the old world to prevent a deceitful kangaroo from shaving the fur from her legs, assuming she is a woman?”

“After a time," said old Mathers disregarding me, "I mercifully perceived the errors of my ways and the unhappy destination I would reach unless I mended them. I retired from the world in order to try to comprehend it and to find out why it becomes more unsavoury as the years accumulate on a man's body. What do you think I discovered at the end of my meditations?"I felt pleased again. He was now questioning me."What?""That No is a better word than Yes," he replied.”

“Tell me, ' he continued, 'would it be true that you are an itinerant dentist and that you came on a tricycle?''It would not, ' I replied.'On a patent tandem?''No.'[...]'Then maybe you are no ...dentist at all, ' he said, 'but only a man after a dog licence or papers for a bull?''I did not say I was a dentist, ' I said sharply, 'and I did not say anything about a bull.”

“You're a terrible man for the blankets, said Kerrigan.I'm not ashamed to admit that I love my bed, said Byrne. She was my first friend...She will house me in my last hour and faithfully hold my cold body when I am dead. She will look bereaved when I am gone.”