ho had been arrested for disturbing the peace. The constable asserted
that he was intoxicated, but the gentleman himself insisted that he was
merely a poet in a more than usually inspired state.

"I am in the poetical advertising line, your worship. It is true I was
surrounded by a crowd, but I was merely practising my trade. I don't
mind telling your worship that this holiday-time makes things a little
lively, and the tradesmen drink my health a trifle oftener than usual;
poetry is dry work, your worship, and a poet needs a good deal of liquid
refreshment. I do not disturb the peace, your worship, at least not more
than any other poet. I go to a grocer's, and, standing outside, I make
up some rhymes about his nice sweet sugar or his ale. If I want to
please a butcher--well, I'll give you a specimen:--

'Here's to the butcher who sells good meat--
In this world it's hard to beat;
It's the very best that's to be had,
And makes the human heart feel glad.
There's no necessity to purloin,
So step in and buy a good sirloin.'

I can go on in this style, like Tennyson's brook, for ever, your
worship." His worship was afraid that he might make the offer good, and
the poet was released, after promising to imbibe less frequently when he
felt the divine afflatus about to descend upon him.

These disagreements between light-hearted and bibulous persons who haunt
the courts week after week have nothing especially pathetic about them,
but there are many that make one's heart ache; many that seem absolutely
beyond any solution, and beyond reach of any justice.

Chapter XIII. 'O! the sound of the Kerry dancing.'

'The light-hearted daughters of Erin,
Like the wild mountain deer they can bound;
Their feet never touch the green island,
But music is struck from the ground.
And oft in the glens and green meadows,
The ould jig they dance with such grace,
That even the daisies they tread on,
Look up with delight in their face.'
James M'Kowen.

One of our favourite diversions is an occasional glimpse of a
'crossroads dance' on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, when all the young
people of the district are gathered together. Their religious duties are
over with their confessions and their masses, and the priests encourage
these decorous Sabbath gaieties. A place is generally chosen where two
or four roads meet, and the dan