r his
own venison, St. Tuck, and St. Takem, St. Drinkem, and St. Eatem, with
all the other reverend worthies, who bore the blushing honors of the
table thick upon your noses, come and inspire your unworthy candidate,
while he essays to chant the praises of a Station dinner!

"Then, then, does the priest appropriate to himself his due share of
enjoyment Then does he, like Elias, throw his garment of inspiration
upon his coadjutors. Then is the goose cut up, and the farmer's
distilled Latin is found to be purer and more edifying than the
distillation of Maynooth.

'Drink deep, or taste not that Pierian spring,
A little learning here's a dangerous thing.'

And so it is, as far as this inspiring language is concerned. A station
dinner is the very pinnacle of a priest's happiness. There is the fun
and frolic; then does the lemon-juice of mirth and humor come out of
their reverences, like secret writing, as soon as they get properly
warm. The song and the joke, the laugh and the leer, the shaking of
hands, the making of matches, and the projection of weddings,--och, I
must conclude, or my brisk fancy will dissolve in the deluding vision!
Here's to my celebrity to-morrow, and may the Bishop catch a Tartar
in your son, my excellent and logical father!--as I tell you among
ourselves he will do. Mark me, I say it, but it's _inter nos_, it won't
go further; but should he trouble me with profundity, may be I'll make a
_ludibrium_ of him."

"But you forget the weddings and christenings, Denis; you'll have great
sport at them too."

"I can't remember three things at a time, Brian; but you are mistaken,
however, I had them snug in one corner of my cranium. The weddings and
the christenings! do you think I'll have nothing to do in them, you!
_stultus_ you?"

"But, Denis, is there any harm in the priests enjoying themselves, and
they so holy as we know they are?" inquired his mother.

"Not the least in life; considering what severe fasting, and great
praying they have; besides it's necessary for them to take something to
put the sins of the people out of their heads, and that's one reason why
they are often jolly at Stations."

"My goodness, what light Denis can throw upon anything!"

"Not without deep study, mother; but let us have another portion of
punch each, afther which I'll read a Latin De Profundis, and we'll go to
bed, I must be up early tomorrow; and, Brian, you'll please to have the
black mare saddled an