said, with a merry laugh, "_because she's a roarer_."

"What a pity!" I exclaimed. "But I don't wonder at it if she has to
carry you and your jokes very far."

He took it in good part, and we had a pleasant evening at the Hall.
He discharged a good many other puns, which I am glad to say I have
forgotten. But there was a man present who was a good story-teller.
Some I had heard before, but they were none the less welcome, while
one or two I related were as good as new to my host and old Squire
Fullerton, who had once been High Sheriff, and was supposed to know
all about circuit business. He prefaced almost everything he said
with, "When I was High Sheriff," so I asked him innocently enough
how many times he had been High Sheriff, on which my host, being a
quick-witted man, looked at him with a broad grin, while he balanced
the nutcrackers on his forefinger.

"Well," said Fullerton, "it was in Parke's time."

"Yes; but which of them?" I asked. "Are you alluding to Sir Alan? They
did not both come together, surely."

"Now, lookee, Fullerton," said my old friend, tapping the mahogany
with the nutcrackers, as though he was about to say something
remarkably clever; "one of 'em, Jemmy, had a kind of a cast in one of
his eyes--didn't he, Judge?"

"Yes," said I; "but their names were not spelt alike."

"No, no!" cried the squire; "I'm coming to that. One eye was a little
troublesome at times, I believe--at least they said so in my time
when _I_ was High Sheriff--and that made him a little ill-tempered
at times. Now, that Judge's name was spelt P-a-r-k-e" (tapping every
letter with his nutcrackers), "so the Bar used to call him '_Parke
with an "e"_;' and what do you think they used to call the other,
whose name was Park?--Come, now, Judge, you can guess that."

I suppose I shook my head, for he said, "Why, you told me the story
yourself four years ago--ah! it must be five years ago--at this very
table, when old Squire Hawley had laid two thousand on Jannette for
the Leger. 'This is it,' said you; 'they call one of them Parke with
an "e," and the other Park with an "i."'"

"Very well," I said, after they had done laughing at the way in which
my host had caught me; "now I'll tell you what the Duke of Wellington
said one morning. You recollect his Grace met with an accident and
lost an eye, which was kept in spirits of wine. On asking him how he
was, the Duke answered,--

"'Oh, Lord Cairns asked me yesterday the same q