Whenever he had a leisure hour always spent it
driving around he quaint old city with the driver, Pat Mullen, who
entertains him with his stories and witicisms. While driving along the,
Liffy one day Pat said:
"Would ye loike a little devarsion, Captain? If ye do, Oi'll take ye
through Pill Lane; but ye must look out fur yure head, sur."
Pill Lane he described as a street mostly inhabited by fish-women who
displayed their stock in trade on a tray on the head of a barrel, These
ladies, like their sisters in Billingsgate, London, bad a great
reputation for their vigorous use of the English language and the
choice epithets that they often hurled at the heads of passers by who
did not purchase from them. Pat explained that his method was to drive
down the Lane at a good gait and by picking out two or three of the
star performers he would arouse them by a method peculiarly his own.
That consisted in driving quite close to these barrels and so near some
of them that the step projecting from the side of the jaunting car
would send the barrel and fish flying all over the sidewalk. Of coarse
this was presumably quite accidental.
Paul consented to try the experiment, being assured that there was no
danger in it. As they drove into the head of the Lane, he soon
discovered that Pat was well known in that locally.
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