d fixes the luckless
lieutenant with an eagle eye, beneath which he quails.

"There is no doubt we lack much," she says, taking his measure with
lofty scorn; "but we have at least our _manners_."

With this she turns her back upon him, and commences a most affable
discussion with Miss Penelope, leaving her victim speechless with
fright.

"Have a brandy-and-soda, Ryde?" says Mr. Kelly, who is always
everywhere, regarding the wretched marine through his eyeglass with a
gaze of ineffable sadness. "Nothing like it, after an engagement of this
sort."

"I thought Ireland was the land for jokes," says the injured Ryde,
indignantly,--"stock in trade sort of thing over here; and yet when I
give 'em one of mine they turn upon me as if I was the worst in the
world. I don't believe any one understands 'em over here."

"You see, your jokes are too fine for us," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully.
"We miss the point of them."

"You are all the most uncomfortable people I ever met," says the
wrathful marine.

"We are, we are," acquiesces Kelly. "We are really a very stupid people.
Anything, delicate or refined is lost upon us, or is met in an
unfriendly spirit. I give you my word, I have known a fellow's head
smashed for less than half what you said to Madam O'Connor just now.
Prejudice runs high in this land. You have, perhaps," in a friendly
tone, "heard of a shillelagh?"

"No, I haven't," sulkily.

"No? _really_? It is quite an institution here. It's a sort of a big
stick, a very unpleasant stick, and is used freely upon the smallest
difference of opinion. You'll meet them round every corner when you get
more used to us: you'd like to see them, wouldn't you?"

"No, I shouldn't," still more sulkily.

"Oh, but you ought, you know. If you are going to live for any time in
the country, you should study its institutions. The best way to see
_this_ one is to make cutting remarks about Ireland in a loud voice when
two or three of the peasants are near you. They don't like cutting
remarks, they are so stupid, and jokes such as yours annoy them
fearfully. Still, you mustn't mind that; you must smother your natural
kindliness of disposition and annoy them, if you want to see the
shillelagh."

"I said nothing to annoy Mrs. O'Connor, at any rate," says Mr. Ryde.
"She needn't have taken a simple word or two like that."

"You see, we are all so terribly thin-skinned," says Mr. Kelly,
regretfully, "I quite blush for my country-people. O