ff the boil' upon the leaves in a teapot, and of the
Hibernian stewing arrangement alluded to above.

Personally I regard all hydros as so many emporiums of disease, an
opinion in which I am singular, but that does not convince me I am
wrong.

A bailiff once went to St. Ann's Hydro to serve a writ, and he told me
afterwards that he served it on his victim in a Turkish bath,
remarking:--

'And your heart would have melted within your honour in pity for the
poor creature not having a pocket to put the document in.'

Which observation recalls to my mind the story of a gentleman in a
Turkish bath asking a friend to dinner, and saying:--

'Don't mind dressing; come just as you are.'

Another misunderstood answer was that of the absent-minded man who
entered a hansom and began to read a paper.

'Where to?' at last cabby asked laconically.

'Drive to the usual place.'

'I'm afraid I have too much on the slate there, sir, unless you pay my
footing.'

'Oh, go to hell,' retorted the other in a rage.

'It's outside the radius, sir, and it will be a steep pull for my old
horse after we've dropped you.'

The light-heartedness of the Celt is another feature which strikes the
least observant stranger.

An Irishman has been described as a man who confided his soul to the
priest, and his body to the British Government, whilst he holds himself
devoid of any vestige of responsibility for the care of either.

Here is another tale, illustrative of his contentment.

A philosopher, in search of happiness, was told by a wise man that if he
got the shirt of a perfectly happy man and put it on, he would himself
become happy.

The philosopher wandered over the world, but could find no man whose
happiness had not some flaw, until he fell in with an Irishman; with
whom he promptly began to bargain for his shirt, only to find he had not
one to his back.

From philosophy to the deuce is not a big stride, according to the view
of those folk who jibe at political economy and all the abstract of
virtues and governments. So, on the tail of their fancy, I am reminded
of another story about the devil--a very large number of Irish stories
are connected with him, because in a very special sense he is the
unauthorised patron saint of the sinners of the country, and he has had
far too much to say to its government into the bargain.

An Englishman, in the witless way in which Saxons do address Irishmen,
asked a labourer by the wayside:--