ar how plainly he spoke--but the mayor ordered him
directly to be ripped up; and after some opposition, and a good deal of
difficulty, Pat stepped forth stark naked out of the bear's-skin wherein
he had been fourteen or fifteen days most cleverly stitched. The women
made off--the men stood astonished--and the mayor ordered his keepers to
be put in goal unless they satisfied him; but that was presently done.
The bear afterwards told O'Leary that he was very well fed, and did not
care much about the clothing; only they worked him too hard: the
fishermen had found him at sea on a hencoop, which had saved him from
going to the bottom, with a ship wherein he had a little venture of
dried cod from Dungarvan, and which was bound from Waterford to Bilboa.
He could not speak a word of any language but Irish, and had never been
at sea before: the fishermen had brought him in, fed him well, and
endeavored to repay themselves by showing him as a curiosity.

"O'Leary's mode of telling this story was quite admirable. I never heard
any anecdote (and I believe this one to be true) related with such
genuine drollery, which was enhanced by his not changing a muscle
himself, while every one of his hearers was in a paroxysm of laughter.

"Another anecdote he used to tell with incomparable dramatic humor. By
the bye, all his stories were somehow national; and this gives me
occasion to remark, that I think Ireland is, at this moment, as little
known in many parts of the Continent as it seems to have been then. I
have myself heard it more than once spoken of as an _English town_. At
Nancy, where Father O'Leary was travelling, his native country happened
to be mentioned when one of the party, a quiet French farmer of
Burgundy, asked, in an unassuming tone, 'If Ireland stood _encore_?'
'Encore,' said an astonished John Bull, a courier coming from
Germany--'encore! to be sure she does; we have her yet, I assure you,
monsieur.' 'Though neither very safe, nor very sound,' interposed an
officer of the Irish Brigade, who happened to be present, looking very
significantly at O'Leary, and not very complacently at the courier. 'And
pray, monsieur,' rejoined John Bull to the Frenchman, 'why _encore_?'
'_Pardon, monsieur_,' replied the Frenchman, 'I heard it had been worn
out (_fatigue_) long ago, by the great number of people that were living
in it.' The fact is, the Frenchman had been told, and really understood,
that Ireland was a large house, where t