And hasn't he
made you as much trouble as any fir darrig could do?"
"I was a lepracaun, too, once, Your Majesty," Naggeneen said.
"A lepracaun, were you? What did you do then? And when was it and how
did it happen that a lazy lump like you was ever a lepracaun?"
"It was a long time ago," said Naggeneen, ready enough to talk about
anything to draw the King's thoughts away from the trouble that he had
made. "After old MacCarthy, of Ballinacarthy, died, those that came
after him did not keep up his cellar well, and I felt lonely and sad,
and I didn't care to drink any more--"
"Lonely and sad you must have been," said the King of All Ireland;
"but you did drink still, did you not, though you didn't care for it?"
"True for you, Your Majesty," said Naggeneen, "I did a little, just
for my health. But I was so lonely and so falling to pieces with
idleness--"
"Falling to pieces with idleness!" the King interrupted again. "If
idleness could make you fall to pieces, there wouldn't have been a
piece of you left big enough to make trouble in a fly's eye, these
last seven hundred years.
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