The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories of Comedy, by Various

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Title: Stories of Comedy

Author: Various

Editor: Rossiter Johnson

Release Date: December 30, 2006 [EBook #20229]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LITTLE CLASSICS

EDITED BY

ROSSITER JOHNSON

STORIES OF
COMEDY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1914

COPYRIGHT, 1875, BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS.

PAGE

BARNY O'REIRDON THE NAVIGATOR _Samuel Lover_ 7

HADDAD-BEN-AHAB THE TRAVELLER _John Galt_ 58

BLUEBEARD'S GHOST _Wm. M. Thackeray_ 67

THE PICNIC PARTY _Horace Smith_ 102

FATHER TOM AND THE POPE _Samuel Ferguson_ 131

JOHNNY DARBYSHIRE _William Howitt_ 168

THE GRIDIRON _Samuel Lover_ 206

THE BOX TUNNEL _Charles Reade_ 217

BARNY O'REIRDON THE NAVIGATOR.

BY SAMUEL LOVER.

I.

OUTWARD BOUND.

Barny O'Reirdon was a fisherman of Kinsale, and a heartier fellow
never hauled a net nor cast a line into deep water: indeed Barny,
independently of being a merry boy among his companions, a lover of
good fun and good whiskey, was looked up to, rather, by his brother
fishermen, as an intelligent fellow, and few boats brought more fish
to market than Barny O'Reirdon's; his opinion on certain points in the
craft was considered law, and in short, in his own little community,
Barny was what is commonly called a leading man. Now your leading man
is always jealous in an inverse ratio to the sphere of his influence,
and the leader of a nation is less incensed at a rival's triumph than
the great man of a village. If we pursue this descending scale, what a
desperately jealous person the oracle of oyster-dredges and
cockle-women must be! Such was Barny O'Reirdon