yself warm until five
o'clock struck. Then I went to the inn door and sounded a loud rat-tat
with the knocker. No one answered, so I knocked still louder. At length
I heard a slow and laborious shuffling of feet in the passage, and an
old woman, wrapped in a patchwork quilt and wearing a white nightcap,
opened the door. She regarded me with hardly subdued fury.

"Phwat d'ye want?" she asked.

"I've come to play chess with Captain Meagher," I replied.

"Oh! glory be to God!" she gasped, and tried to shut the door in my
face. But I dodged under her elbow and fled up the stairs, for I knew
my friend's room. The woman followed, ejaculating mixed prayers and
curses. I tried the Captain's door, but it was locked, so I thundered
on the panel and roared for admittance. I shall never forget the look
of dismay on the poor man's face when I told him what I had come for.
However, he was very nice over the matter; he made the old woman light
a fire and provide me with hot milk and bread. But my disappointment
was bitter when I found that he was quite ignorant of the game of
chess.

The most celebrated physician in the Dublin of those days was Sir
Dominic Corrigan, who, however, was as much famed for his brusqueness
towards patients as for his skill. Being in weak health, I was often
taken to him, but he invariably treated me with the utmost kindness.
However, a highly, respectable maiden-aunt of mine had a somewhat
different experience. She went to consult him. After sounding her none
too gently and asking a few questions, he relapsed into silence. Then,
after a pause of meditation, he said

"Well, ma'am, it's one of two things: either you drink or else you sit
with your back to the fire."

In one of the outhouses at Springfield dwelt an old woman, a
superannuated servant. I remember her under the name of "Old Mary." The
room she occupied was small, and contained but little furniture. Yet it
was always neat and as clean as a new pin. Old Mary used to sit all day
long in a high armchair, knitting, and with a black cat asleep on her
lap. She was a terrible tea-drinker, and was very fond of me, but I ill
requited her kindness by continually plundering her sugar-bowl. The
latter she took to hiding, but I, engaging her the time in airy
conversation, used to ransack the premises until I found it. Eventually
it became a game of skill between the hider and the seeker. I can now
see the old woman's eyes over the rims of her spectacles