that ever lived.'

'We have witty fellows too.'

'No, you haven't! Do you call your House of Commons' jokes wit? Are
the stories you tell at your hustings' speeches wit? Is there one over
there'--and he pointed in the direction of England--'that ever made a smart
repartee or a brilliant answer to any one about anything? You now and then
tell an Irish story, and you forget the point; or you quote a French _mot_,
and leave out the epigram. Don't be angry--it's truth I'm telling you.'

'I'm not angry, though I must say I don't think you are fair to us.'

The last bit of brilliancy you had in the House was Brinsley Sheridan, and
there wasn't much English about _him_.'

'I've never heard that the famous O'Connell used to convulse the House with
his drollery.'

'Why should he? Didn't he know where he was? Do you imagine that O'Connell
was going to do like poor Lord Killeen, who shipped a cargo of coalscuttles
to Africa?'

'Will you explain to me then how, if you are so much shrewder and wittier
and cleverer than us, it does not make you richer, more prosperous, and
more contented?'

'I could do that too--but I'm losing the birds. There's a cock now. Well
done! I see you can shoot a bit.--Look here, major, there's a deal in
race--in the blood of a people. It's very hard to make a light-hearted,
joyous people thrifty. It's your sullen fellow, that never cuts a joke, nor
wants any one to laugh at it, that's the man who saves. If you're a wit,
you want an audience, and the best audience is round a dinner-table; and
we know what that costs. Now, Ireland has been very pleasant for the last
hundred and fifty years in that fashion, and you, and scores of other
low-spirited, depressed fellows, come over here to pluck up and rouse
yourselves, and you go home, and you wonder why the people who amused you
were not always as jolly as you saw them. I've known this country now nigh
sixty years, and I never knew a turn of prosperity that didn't make us
stupid; and, upon my conscience, I believe, if we ever begin to grow rich,
we'll not be a bit better than yourselves.'

'That would be very dreadful,' said the other, in mock-horror.

'So it would, whether you mean it or not.--There's a hare missed this
time!'

'I was thinking of something I wanted to ask you. The fact is, Kearney, I
have a thing on my mind now.'

'Is it a duel? It's many a day since I was out, but I used to know every
step of the way as well as most men.'

'N