hrop it on the plain out there forninst ye, the big lump they call
the rock iv Cashel? Av coorse he did. An' if the divil himself found
Ireland too hard a nut to crack, how can the English expect to manage
us? Anyway, 'tis too big a mouthful for Misther Bull." One gentleman
stood at his shop door, and having looked carefully around, said, "Ye
niver know who ye're spakin' wid, an' ye niver know who's spyin' ye.
Ah, this is a terrible counthry since we all got upset wid this Home
Rule question. Did ye hear of Sadleir, of Tipperary? Ye didn't? He was
a savin', sthrivin' man, an' he married a woman wid money. He had a
foine shop, wid ploughs, an' sickles, an' spades for the whole
counthry round. 'Twas a grand business he had, an' he made a powerful
dale o' money. He was a quiet man, an' niver wint to the whiskey
shops, where the boys they would be quarrellin' an' knockin' hell out
iv each other. He introduced a timprance lecturer that towld the boys
the poteen was pizenin' thim, an' 'twas wather they must dhrink. Ha!
Ha! Will I tell ye what owld Sheela Maguire said to the timprance
man?"

I admitted a delirious delight in discursive digression.

"The timprance man had a wondherful glass that made iverything a
thousand million times as big. What's this he called it? Ye're right,
'twas a my-cross-scrope; ye hit it to a pop; bedad 'tis yerself has
the larnin.' An' the people looked through it at the wather he put in
a glass, an' they seen the wather all swimmin' wid snakes an'
scorpions; 'twas enough to terrify the mortal sowl out o' ye. An' so
Sheela looked in an' saw them. An' the man put in the wather a good
dhrop o' whiskey, an' he says, says he, 'Now ye'll see the effect on
animal life,' says he. An' Sheela looked in again, an' she seen the
snakes all doubled up, an' kilt, an' murthered an' says Sheela, says
she:--

"'May the divil fly away wid me,' says she, 'if I ever touch wather
again till I first put in whiskey to kill them fellows!'

"'Twas poor Sadleir, of Tipperary town, brought the man down. Sadleir
must howld land; nothin' less would sarve him, an' he tuk from
Smith-Barry a big houldin', an' paid the out-going tenant five
thousand pounds for his interest. Whin the throubles began he refused
to join the Land League, by raison that he'd put all his money in the
land. They sent him terrible letthers wid skulls an' guns, an'
coffins, an' they said Will ye join? An' he said No, once. They
smashed ivery pane o' g