s, and explained how men were not always quite so strong as
they looked; that he might, if he liked it, by permission of his bishop,
eat meat at every meal in the day, and every day in the week; that his
not doing so was a voluntary abstinence--not conscientious, only
expedient--to prevent the 'unreasonable remarks' of his parishioners (a
roar of laughter); that he was, perhaps, rightly served for not having
publicly availed himself of his bishop's dispensation (renewed peals of
merriment). By this foolish delicacy (more of that detestable
horse-laughter), he had got himself into a false position; and so on,
till the _ad misericordiam_ peroration addressed to 'Captain Devereux,
dear,' and 'Toole, my honey.' Well, they quizzed him unmercifully; they
sat down and eat all that was left of the hare-pie, under his wistful
ogle. They made him narrate minutely every circumstance connected with
the smuggling of the game, and the illicit distillation for the mess.
They never passed so pleasant a morning. Of course he bound them over to
eternal secrecy, and of course, as in all similar cases, the vow was
religiously observed; nothing was ever heard of it at mess--oh, no--and
Toole never gave a dramatic representation of the occurrence, heightened
and embellished with all the little doctor's genius for farce.

There certainly was a monologue to which he frequently afterwards
treated the Aldermen of Skinner's Alley, and other convivial bodies, at
supper, the doctor's gestures were made with knife and fork in hand, and
it was spoken in a rich brogue and tones sometimes of thrilling pathos,
anon of sharp and vehement indignation, and again of childlike
endearment, amidst pounding and jingling of glasses, and screams of
laughter from the company. Indeed the lord mayor, a fat slob of a
fellow, though not much given to undue merriment, laughed his ribs into
such a state of breathless torture, that he implored of Toole, with a
wave of his hand--he could not speak--to give him breathing time, which
that voluble performer disregarding, his lordship had to rise twice, and
get to the window, or, as he afterwards said, he should have lost his
life; and when the performance was ended, his fat cheeks were covered
with tears, his mouth hung down, his head wagged slowly from side to
side, and with short gasping 'oohs,' and 'oohs,' his hands pressed to
his pudgy ribs, he looked so pale and breathless, that although they
said nothing, several of his