ant MacMahon was noted for his confusion of language in
his efforts to be sublime. He cared less for the sense than the sound.
As, for example: "Gentlemen of the jury, I smell a rat--but I'll nip it
in the bud." And, "My client acted boldly. He saw the storm brewing in
the distance, but he was not dismayed! He took the bull by the horns and
he _indicted him for perjury_."

Peter Burrowes, a well-known member of the Irish Bar, was on one
occasion counsel for the prosecution at an important trial for murder.
Burrowes had a severe cold, and opened his speech with a box of lozenges
in one hand and in the other the small pistol bullet by which the man
had met his death. Between the pauses of his address he kept supplying
himself with a lozenge. But at last, in the very middle of a
'high-falutin' period, he stopped. His legal chest heaved, his eyes
seemed starting from his head, and in a voice tremulous with fright he
exclaimed: "Oh! h-h!!! Gentlemen, gentlemen; I've swallowed the
bul-let!"

An Irish counsel who was once asked by the judge for whom he was
"concerned," replied: "My lord, I am retained by the defendant, and
therefore I am concerned for the plaintiff."

A junior at the Bar in course of his speech began to use a simile of
"the eagle soaring high above the mists of the earth, winning its daring
flight against a midday sun till the contemplation becomes too dazzling
for humanity, and mortal eyes gaze after it in vain." Here the orator
was noticed to falter and lose the thread of his speech, and sat down
after some vain attempts to regain it; the judge remarking: "The next
time, sir, you bring an eagle into Court, I should recommend you to clip
its wings."

Mr. Tim Healy's power of effective and stinging repartee is probably
unexcelled. He is seldom at a loss for a retort, and there are not a few
politicians and others who regret having been foolish enough to rouse
his resentment. There is on record, however, an amusing interlude in the
passing of which Tim was discomfited--crushed, and found himself unable
to "rise to the occasion."

During the hearing of a case at the Recorder's Court in Dublin the
Testament on which the witnesses were being sworn disappeared. After a
lengthy hunt for it, counsel for the defendant noticed that Mr. Healy
had taken possession of the book, and was deeply absorbed in its
contents, and quite unconscious of the dismay its disappearance was
causing.

"I think, sir," said the coun