The feeling of offered friendship and companionship warmed him with a sudden glow.
He felt that his eyes were filling with tears, and that his voice would break if he tried to speak, but he did not care at all.

He poured out a long Gaelic greeting, scarcely knowing what he said.

Perhaps neither the man whose hands he held nor the owner of the shop behind the counter fully understood him, but they guessed at his feelings.
'Is it that you are a stranger here and lonely?
Where is your home?
What name is there on you ?' 'Maiseadh, I am a stranger indeed and lonely too,' said Hyacinth.
'You are a stranger no longer, then.

We are all of us friends with each other.

You speak our own dear tongue, and that is enough to make us friends.' The tobacconist, it appeared, also spoke Irish of a kind.