, a Home Rule paper
politely christened me as the fatherly patron of the Court, and informed
me that my own conscience had given up communication with me, in
consequence of the many snubs it had received.

The intimate knowledge of my most private affairs that this purports to
represent proves the empty-headedness of the writer, and when he added
that the strong indictment rebounded off my hide because I had heard
myself a hundred times denounced in language equally eloquent, I can
only agree that he was a mere lisping babe in comparison with some
adjectival denunciators who, to their regret, find I am still alive and
equal to them all.

CHAPTER XXIII

LATER DAYS

With advancing years comes a change in the point of view, for
anticipation contracts even more than retrospect expands. Associates of
early days have passed away, and where I was once one of a battalion,
to-day I am only a survivor of the old guard. This is not a cause for
sadness, but an incentive to take the best of what remains of life,
though at times chills and other ills, including doctors, drugs, and
income-tax, do their best to depress the survivor. It has been said to
be a characteristic of Irish humour that tears are very near the
laughter, and sometimes the unshed tears over lost opportunities must be
the chief bitterness of age--one which I have been mercifully spared.

After all, youth may round the world away, as Charles Kingsley wrote;
but when the wheels are run down, to find at home the face I loved when
all was young is the blessing of life, and when, at our golden wedding,
our children called us Darby and Joan, I am sure my wife and I were
quite willing to answer to the names.

This was happiness very different to that of George IV., who, when the
death of Napoleon was announced to him in the words:--

'Sir, your great enemy is dead,' exclaimed:--

'Is she? By Gad!' thinking it was his wife.

I remember an amusing case that occurred in our own family. One of my
kith and kin, who had been married in the year of the battle of
Waterloo, died at the ripe old age of a hundred and three.

There was a faithful old fellow on the estate who was much attached to
her, and this was his view, just before her end:--

'I am sorry to hear the old mistress is dying, very sorry indeed, for
she's been a good mistress to us all. Maybe if she had taken snuff she'd
have lived to a good old age,' which suggests wonder as to what his
conceptio