years now since it took place, and many other things have
happened to him, such as going to England to give evidence in the
Parnell Commission, and matrimony, and taking the second prize in the
Lightweight Hunter Class at the Dublin Horse Show. But none of them, not
even the trip to London, possesses quite the same fortunate blend of the
sublime and the ridiculous that gives this incident such a perennial
success at the Hunt and Agricultural Show dinners which are the dazzling
breaks in the monotony of Mr. Denny's life, and he prized it
accordingly.

Mr. Johnny Denny--or Dinny Johnny as he was known to his wittier
friends--was a young man of the straightest sect of the Cork buckeens, a
body whose importance justifies perhaps a particular description of one
of their number. His profession was something imperceptibly connected
with the County Grand Jury Office, and was quite over-shadowed in winter
by the gravities of hunting, and in summer by the gallantries of the
Militia training; for, like many of his class, he was a captain in the
Militia. He was always neatly dressed; his large moustache looked as if
it shared with his boots the attention of the blacking brush. No cavalry
sergeant in Ballincollig had a more delicately bowed leg, nor any
creature, except, perhaps, a fox-terrier interviewing a rival, a more
consummate swagger. He knew every horse and groom in all the leading
livery stables, and, in moments of expansion, would volunteer to name
the price at which any given animal could be safeguarded from any given
veterinary criticism. With all these not specially attractive qualities,
however, Dinny Johnny was, and is, a good fellow in his way. His temper
was excellent, his courage indisputable; he has never been known to give
any horse--not even a hireling--less than fair play, and a tendency to
ride too close to hounds has waned since time, like an Irish elector,
has taken to emphasising himself by throwing stones, and Dinny Johnny,
once ten stone, now admits to riding 13.7.

In those days, before the inertia that creeps like mildew over country
householders had begun to form, Mr. Denny was in the habit of making
occasional excursions into remote parts of the County Cork in search of
those flowers of pony perfection that are supposed to blush unseen in
any sufficiently mountainous and unknown country, and the belief in
which is the touch of wild poetry that keeps alive the soul of the
amateur horse coper. He had n