r
warned of his possible peril. I think, too, that the Verger enjoyed his
little joke.

In that same Chapel Royal I listened to the most eloquent and beautiful
sermon I have ever heard in my life, preached by Dean Magee (afterwards
Archbishop of York) on Christmas Day, 1866. His text was: "There were
shepherds abiding in the fields." That marvellous orator must have had
some peculiar gift of sympathy to captivate the attention of a child of
ten so completely that he remembers portions of that sermon to this
very day, fifty-four years afterwards.

To my great delight I discovered a little door near our joint bedroom
which led directly into the gallery of St. Patrick's Hall. Here the big
dinners of from seventy to ninety people were held, and it was my
delight to creep into the gallery in my dressing-gown and slippers and
watch the brilliant scene below. The stately white-and-gold hall with
its fine painted ceiling, the long tables blazing with plate and
lights, the display of flowers, the jewels of the ladies and the
uniforms of the men, made a picture very attractive to a child. After
the ladies had left, the uproar became deafening. In 1866 the old
drinking habits had not yet died out, and though my father very seldom
touched wine himself, he of course saw that his guests had sufficient;
indeed, sufficient seems rather an elastic term, judging by what I saw
and what I was told. It must have been rather like one of the scenes
described by Charles Lever in his books. In 1866 political, religious,
and racial animosities had not yet assumed the intensely bitter
character they have since reached in Ireland, and the traditional Irish
wit, at present apparently dormant, still flashed, sparkled and
scintillated. From my hiding-place in the gallery I could only hear the
roars of laughter the good stories provoked, I could not hear the
stories themselves, possibly to my own advantage.

Judge Keogh had a great reputation as a wit. The then Chief Justice was
a remarkable-looking man on account of his great snow-white whiskers
and his jet-black head of hair. My mother, commenting on this, said to
Judge Keogh, "Surely Chief Justice Monaghan must dye his hair." "To my
certain knowledge he does not," answered Keogh. "How, then, do you
account for the difference in colour between his whiskers and his
hair?" asked my mother. "To the fact that, throughout his life, he has
used his jaw a great deal more than he ever has his brain," ret