pid one?'

Lord Morris told many stories, but for a change, here is one told of
him.

A Belfast tourist was riding past Spiddal, and asked a countryman who
lived there.

'One Judge Morris, your honour; but he lives the best part of his time
in Dublin.'

'Oh yes,' says the other, 'that's Lord Chief Justice Morris.'

'The very dead spit of him, your honour; and I was told he draws a
thousand a year salary.'

'He has five thousand five hundred a year.'

'Ah, your honour, it's very hard to make me believe that.'

'Why don't you believe it?'

'Because when he's down here he passes my gate five days in the week,
and I never saw the sign of liquor on him.'

Evidently the bigger salary the bigger profit to the whisky distiller
was the rustic's theory.

I have forgotten how the story came to my ears, but I told it to Lord
Morris, who much appreciated it.

Another Kerry story, not unlike one narrated earlier in this chapter,
runs thiswise:--

Two men came to order a coffin for a mutual friend called Tim
O'Shaughnessy.

Said the undertaker:--

'I am sorry to hear poor Tim is gone. He had a famous way with him of
drinking whisky. What did he die of?'

Replied one of the men:--

'He is not dead yet at all; but the doctor says he will be before the
morning; and sure he should know, for he knows what he gave him.'

Sometimes, however, the patient is quite as clever as the doctor.

A physician in Dublin had a telephone put in his bedroom, and when he
was rung up about half-past one on a freezing wintry night, he told his
wife to answer it.

She complied, and informed him:--

'It is Mr. Shamus O'Brien, and he wants you to come round at once.'

The physician knew this to be purely an imaginary case of illness, so
not wishing to be disturbed, said to her:--

'Tell him the doctor is out, and will not be home till morning.'

Unfortunately he spoke so near the telephone that his remark was audible
to the patient. So when the wife had duly delivered the message, the
answer came back:--

'If the man in your bed is a doctor, send him here.'

CHAPTER XIV

IRISH CHARACTERISTICS

It's the proudest boast of my life that I am an Irishman, and the
compliment which I have most appreciated in my time was being called
'the poor man's friend,' for I love Paddy dearly though I see his
faults. Yes, perhaps one of the reasons why I love him is because I do
see the faults, for the errors of an Irishman are often