same trade located
in Kanturk. It was Mr. O'Dwyer's business to look after this concern,
to see to the passengers and the booking, the oats, and hay, and
stabling, while his well-known daughter, the charming Fanny O'Dwyer,
took care of the house, and dispensed brandy and whisky to the
customers from Kanturk.

To tell the truth, the bar was a much more alluring place than the
coffee-room, and Fanny O'Dwyer a more alluring personage than Tom,
the one-eyed waiter. This Elysium, however, was not open to all
comers--not even to all comers from Kanturk. Those who had the right
of entry well knew their privilege; and so also did they who had not.
This sanctum was screened off from the passage by a window, which
opened upwards conveniently, as is customary with bar-windows; but
the window was blinded inside by a red curtain, so that Fanny's
stool near the counter, her father's wooden arm-chair, and the old
horsehair sofa on which favoured guests were wont to sit, were not
visible to the public at large.

Of the up-stair portion of this establishment it is not necessary to
say much. It professed to be an hotel, and accommodation for sleeping
was to be obtained there; but the well-being of the house depended
but little on custom of this class.

Nor need I say much of the kitchen, a graphic description of which
would not be pleasing. Here lived a cook, who, together with Tom
the waiter, did all that servants had to do at the Kanturk Hotel.
From this kitchen lumps of beef, mutton chops, and potatoes did
occasionally emanate, all perfumed with plenteous onions; as also did
fried eggs, with bacon an inch thick, and other culinary messes too
horrible to be thought of. But drinking rather than eating was the
staple of this establishment. Such was the Kanturk Hotel in South
Main Street, Cork.

It was on a disagreeable, cold, sloppy, raw, winter evening--an
evening drizzling sometimes with rain, and sometimes with sleet--that
an elderly man was driven up to the door of the hotel on a one-horse
car--or jingle, as such conveniences were then called in the south of
Ireland. He seemed to know the house, for with his outside coat all
dripping as it was he went direct to the bar-window, and as Fanny
O'Dwyer opened the door he walked into that warm precinct. There he
encountered a gentleman, dressed one would say rather beyond the
merits of the establishment, who was taking his ease at full length
on Fanny's sofa, and drinking some hot c