l island should be
steeped in poverty; that the people not only live upon the mere potatoes,
but are absolutely obliged to wear the skins for raiment, as Mr. Doolan has
just mentioned to me!"

"'Which accounts for our cultivation of lumpers,' added Mr. Doolan, 'they
being the largest species of the root, and best adapted for wearing
apparel.'

"'I should deem myself culpable--indeed I should--did I not inform my
countrymen upon the real condition of this great country.'

"'Why, after your great opportunities for judging,' said Phil, 'you ought
to speak out. You've seen us in a way, I may fairly affirm, few Englishmen
have, and heard more.'

"'That's it,--that's the very thing, Mr. Macnamara. I've looked at you more
closely; I've watched you more narrowly; I've witnessed what the French
call your _vie intime_.'

"'Begad you have,' said old Burke, with a grin, 'and profited by it to the
utmost.'

"'I've been a spectator of your election contests; I've partaken of your
hospitality; I've witnessed your popular and national sports; I've
been present at your weddings, your fairs, your wakes; but no,--I was
forgetting,--I never saw a wake.'

"'Never saw a wake?' repeated each of the company in turn, as though the
gentleman was uttering a sentiment of very dubious veracity.

"'Never,' said Mr. Prettyman, rather abashed at this proof of his
incapacity to instruct his English friends upon _all_ matters of Irish
interest.

"'Well, then,' said Macnamara, 'with a blessing, we'll show you one.
Lord forbid that we shouldn't do the honors of our poor country to an
intelligent foreigner when he's good enough to come among us.'

"'Peter,' said he, turning to the servant behind him, 'who's dead
hereabouts?'

"'Sorra one, yer honor. Since the scrimmage at Portumna the place is
peaceable.'

"'Who died lately in the neighborhood?'

"'The widow Macbride, yer honor.'

"'Couldn't they take her up again, Peter? My friend here never saw a wake.'

"'I'm afeered not; for it was the boys roasted her, and she wouldn't be a
decent corpse for to show a stranger,' said Peter, in a whisper.

"Mr. Prettyman shuddered at these peaceful indications of the neighborhood,
and said nothing.

"'Well, then, Peter, tell Jimmy Divine to take the old musket in my
bedroom, and go over to the Clunagh bog,--he can't go wrong. There's twelve
families there that never pay a halfpenny rent; and _when it's done_, let
him give notice to the neighborho