The Little Good People

"

"MacCarthy of Ballinacarthy?" the King asked.

"The same," said Naggeneen, "and it was he was the good friend to mortal or fairy. It was he kept the good house and the good table and the good cellar—more especially the good cellar. That was not so many years ago—a hundred and odd, maybe. A fine man he was; we don't see his like now. I lived wid him the most of the time—in the cellar. And the strange thing about him was that, though nobody ever had a bad word for him, though all his servants said that he was the kindest and the best masther that ever stepped, he could get nobody to stay in the place of butler. It was all well enough wid the rest—cooks, maids, hostlers, stable boys—but the first time ever a new butler went into that beautiful wine cellar for wine, back he'ld come in a hurry and say that he'ld lave his place the next day, and nothing on earth would keep him in it. Now, wasn't that strange?"

"Did you say you lived in that cellar?" the King asked.

"The most of the time," said Naggeneen.

"Then it was not strange," said the King.

"Any way, strange or not strange," Naggeneen went on, "it was the truth. Never a butler could he keep in his service. A new butler would come and he'ld think he was a made man, old MacCarthy was that well known and that well liked all over the counthry. He'ld wait once at dinner and then down he'ld go to the cellar for wine. Sometimes he'ld come back wid the wine and oftener he'ld come back widout it, but every time he'ld say: 'Mr. MacCarthy, sir, it's much obliged to you I am for all your kindness, but I'll have to be lavin' your service to-morrow.' And nobody could see the why of it.

"And at long last there was young Jack Leary, that had been all his life in old MacCarthy's stable, and he knew how the old man was bad off for a butler, and he made bold to ask for the place. 'If I make ye me butler,' says the old man, 'will ye go into the cellar and bring the wine when I ask ye, and make no throuble about it?'

"'Is that all?