t was he was kind to the poor."

There was a deputation of young men waiting at my house. I have been
pestered from deputations and speeches since the Land League. A shaggy
giant stepped forward and said:--

"We have preshumed, your reverence, to call upon you to ascertain
whether you'd be agreeable to our what I may call unanimous intinsion of
asking the new cojutor to be prisident of the Gaelic association of
Kilronan, called the 'Holy Terrors.'"

I said I was agreeable to anything they wished: and Father Letheby
became president of the "Holy Terrors."

After dinner something put me into better humor. I suppose it was the
mountain mutton, for there's nothing like it in Ireland,--mutton raised
on limestone land, where the grass is as tender to the lips of the
sheep, as the sheep to the lips of men. I thought I had an excellent
opportunity of eliciting my curate's proficiency in his classics. With
a certain amount of timidity, for you never know when you are treading
on a volcano with these young men, I drew the subject around. I have a
way of talking enigmatically, which never fails, however, to reveal my
meaning. And after a few clever passes, I said, demurely, drawing out my
faded and yellow translation, made nearly thirty years ago:--

"I was once interested in other things. Here is a little weak
translation I once made of a piece of Greek poetry, with which you are
quite familiar. Ah me! I had great notions at the time, ideas of
corresponding with classical journals, and perhaps, sooner or later, of
editing a classic myself. But _Cui bono?_ paralyzed everything. That
fatal _Cui bono?_ that is the motto and watchword of every thinking and
unthinking man in Ireland. However, now that you have come, perhaps--who
knows? What do you think of this?"

I read solemnly:--

"I have argued and asked in my sorrow
What shall please me? what manner of life?
At home am I burdened with cares that borrow
Their color from a world of strife.
The fields are burdened with toil,
The seas are sown with the dead,
With never a hand of a priest to assoil
A soul that in sin hath fled.
I have gold: I dread the danger by night;
I have none: I repine and fret;
I have children: they darken the pale sunlight;
I have none: I'm in nature's debt.
The young lack wisdom; the old lack life;
I have brains; but I shake at the knees;
Alas! who could covet a scene of str