on after his day's work.

A near relative of my own gets his club cronies to play bridge with his
son, aged eighteen, and pays his losses, in order that he may be
thoroughly grounded in the game. The lad is a capital boy, and all the
better for his early association with elder men on their own level.

One of the resources of my old age is three games of picquet every night
after dinner with my wife, and very much I enjoy them. There is often
the fashionable bridge played in the room by my children and their
friends, but I have never taken a hand, though in younger days I derived
a fair amount of diversion from whist.

CHAPTER IV

FARMING

My years of schooling having come to an end, I was back in Ireland in
full enjoyment of youth, high spirits, and thoughtless carelessness.
These holiday times were delightful. I could be in the saddle all day if
I liked, was free to shoot or bathe as I pleased, had dogs at my
disposal, could pass the time of day with all sorts and conditions of
men--a thing which I have relished all my life--and in fact led the gay
existence of the younger offshoot of an Irish squire.

In those days things were not so impecunious in Ireland as they
subsequently became, but there was always a vivacious Hibernian scorn
for false pretension, and a determination to have the best possible
time, such as you can read in Lever's novels of old, and the capital
tales of those two clever ladies, Miss Martin and Miss Somerville,
to-day.

It is perfectly true that there are many Irish landlords in sporting
counties who cannot have three hundred a year, and yet all their sons
and daughters manage to hunt four days a week.

This would be impossible out of Ireland, and is absolutely
incomprehensible even there; but the fact remains that it is done, and
all one can remark is to echo the patter of the conjuror:--

'Wonderful, isn't it?'

I, however, was not destined to be left a derelict at home, as falls to
the hapless lot of far too many good fellows in Ireland.

There were a good many family counsels, and the authorities could not
make up their minds what to do with me. However, I thought farming was
the idlest occupation, and suggested it should be my profession--an idea
hailed with rapture, principally because it saved everybody the trouble
of racking their brains about me.

Personally, I have often regretted that what in modern phrase may be
called the 'Stevenson boom' did not coincide with