een carried far enough. Determined to have this cock-and-bull story
contradicted at once, I went down to the House and saw Mr. John Burns,
who expressed to me his regret that he should have invented the story,
and he left me to go to the writing-room, and promised I should have
from him a written contradiction.

After waiting a considerable time, a message was brought to me that Mr.
Burns declined to keep his promise. I therefore wrote these particulars
and sent them off to the Press. At the same time Mr. Burns, who had been
closeted with some Radical journalists, wrote an offensive note--which
was shown me, and which I advised him to publish.

Poor Mr. MacNeill! Well may he say, "Save me from my friends!" The Press
put on their comic men to make copy at his expense. If I were to publish
it all, it would make a volume as large as this. By permission I publish
the following lay from the _St. James' Budget_ (September, 1893):

"THE LAY OF SWIFT MACNEILL.

(_Picked up in the Lobby._)

"Have ye heard, have ye heard, of the late immortal fray,
When the lion back of Swift MacNeill got up and stood at bay,
When the lion voice of Tanner cried, 'To Judas wid yer chaff!'
An' the Saxon knees were shaking, though they made believe to laugh.

"'Twas widin the Commons' Lobby, in the corner by the dure,
There was Misther Harry Furniss a-standing on the flure,
When up to him came stalking, like O'Tarquin in his pride,
The bowldest of the bowld, MacNeill, wid the Docther by his side.

"Then the valiant Swift MacNeill from his pocket he took out
A picther very like him, an' he brandished it about,
An' he held it up to Furniss for his Saxon eyes to see,
An' he asked of him, 'Ye spalpeen, is this porthrait meant for me?'

"''Tis your likeness, as I see it,' was the answer that he got,
An' the wrath of Misther Swift MacNeill then wax'd exceeding hot,
An' he cast the picther from him, an' he trod it on the ground,
An' he took an' danced an Irish jig the artist's form around.

"'Ye spalpeen,' thus again he spoke, 'ye most obnoxious fellow!
Ye see that I'm a lion, yet ye've made me a gorilla;
If your Saxon eyes are blinded to the truth of what I say,
Go and borrow for a moment the glasses of Tay Pay.

"'They will show ye that our seventy are Apollos one and all,
That we're most divinely lovely an' seraphically tall;
They will show ye w