then the western Irishman had his distinctive
traits; and while the taste for courtly breeding and polished manners
was gradually extending, he took a kind of pride in maintaining his
primitive habits of dress and demeanor, and laughed at the newfangled
notions as a fashionable folly that would last its hour and disappear
again. Of this school was a certain Mr., or rather, as he was always
called, "Old Bob Ffrench," the familiar epithet of Bitter Bob being his
cognomen among friends and intimates. I am unwilling to let my readers
suppose, even for a moment, that he really deserved the disparaging
prefix. He was, indeed, the very emblem of an easy-tempered,
generous-hearted old man, the utmost extent of whose bitterness was the
coarseness of a manner that, however common in his own country, formed
a strong contrast to the tone of the capital. Although a man of a
large fortune and ancient family, in his dress and appearance he looked
nothing above the class of a comfortable farmer. His large loose brown
coat was decorated with immense silver buttons, and his small clothes,
disdaining all aid from braces, displayed a liberal margin of linen over
his hips; but his stockings were most remarkable of all, being of lamb's
wool and of two colors, a light-brown and blue,--an invention of his own
to make them easy of detection if stolen, but which assuredly secured
their safety on better grounds. He was a member of Parliament for a
western borough; and despite many peculiarities of diction, and an
occasional lapse of grammar, was always listened to with attention in
the House, and respected for the undeviating honor and manly frankness
of his character. Bob had been, as usual, an able contributor to the
pleasures of the evening; he had sung, told stories, joked, and quizzed
every one around him, and even, in a burst of confidence, communicated
the heads of a speech he was about to make in the House on the question
of reform, when he suddenly discovered that his snuffbox was empty.
Now, amongst his many peculiarities, one was the belief that no man in
Ireland knew how to apportion the various kinds of tobacco like himself,
and Bob's mixture was a celebrated snuff of the time.

To replenish his box he always carried a little canister in his
great-coat pocket, but never would intrust the care of this important
casket to a servant; so that when he saw that he was "empty," he quietly
stole from the room and went in search of his great-