as the
whole jing-bang that turned round with him before would no doubt
still follow at his heels, we'd get a considerable quantity of
converts, if we could say little about the quality. D'ye hear what
that owld woman's singing?"

I listened with interest. The minstrelsy of Ireland seems to have
drifted into the hands of the most unpoetical people in the green
isle. The poor old creature walked very, very slowly along the gutter,
ever and anon giving herself a suggestive twitch, which plainly
indicated some cutaneous titillation--the South is a grazing country.
This was all I heard--

Owld Oireland was Owld Oireland
Whin England was a pup.
Oireland will be Owld Oireland
Whin England's bur-r-sted up!

If my friends are right as to the change of feeling _re_ Home Rule,
the dear old lady was hardly up to date. But the great author of
"Dirty Little England"--I judge of the author by the internal evidence
of sentiment, style, and literary merit--certainly composed the above
beautiful stanza in the sure and certain hope that the present bill
would become law.

Number Three qualified his remarks on rent, when speaking of the
County Clare. "There they embarrass the Government by refusing to pay,
and by shooting people in the good old way, just at the most ticklish
time." He said, "Clare has always been an exceptional county. Clare
returned Daniel O'Connell, by him secured Catholic Emancipation, and
from that time has called itself the premier county of Ireland. They
are queer, unmanageable divils, are the Clare folks, and we are only
divided from them by the Shannon. So the Kerry folks go mad sometimes
by contagion. I should advise you to keep away from Clare. You might
get a shot-hole put into you. Every visitor is noticed in those lonely
regions, and the little country towns only serve to disseminate the
arrival of a stranger to the rural districts. Suppose you walk five
miles out of Ennis the day after you arrive there, I would wager a
pound the first woman that sees you pass her cottage will say, 'That's
the Englishman that Maureen O'Hagan said was staying at the Queen's
Hotel.' The servants are regular spies, every one of them. I couldn't
speak politics in my house because I've a Catholic nurse. Good bye, I
hope ye won't get shot."

I thanked him for the interest expressed, but failed to share his
nervousness. After having mingled with the Nationalist crowd that
followed the Balfour column in