achree, it's a thousand
pities that I'm not living to have a cut at you!'--ha, ha, ha! God be
good to old Friar Hennessy, I have that joke from him.

"'Well, Mrs. Hacket,' says I, as I was airing my fingers at the fire, 'I
dare say you haven't another goose like this about the house? Now, tell
me, like an honest woman, have you any of the same kidney?--I only ask
for information.'

"Mrs. Hacket, however, told me she believed there might be a few of the
same kind straggling about the place, but said nothing further upon it,
until the Saturday following, when her son brings me down a pair of
the fattest geese I ever cut up for my Sunday's dinner. Now, Mrs.
O'Shaughnessy, wasn't that doing the thing dacent?"

"Well, well, Docthor," said Denis, "that was all right; let Mave
alone, an' maybe she'll be apt to find out a pair that will match Mrs.
Hacket's. Not that I say it, but she doesn't like to be outdone in
anything."

"Docthor, I was wishin' to know, sir," continued the uncle of the absent
candidate, "what the value of a good parish might be."

"I think, Mave, there's a discrepancy between the goose and the shoulder
of mutton. The fact is, that if it be a disputation between them, as to
which will be roasted first, I pronounce that the goose will have it.
It's now, let me see, half past four o'clock, and, in my opinion, it
will take a full half hour to bring up the mutton. So Mave, if you'll
be guided by your priest, advance the mutton towards the fire about two
inches, and keep the little girsha basting steadily, and then you'll be
sure to have it rich and juicy."

"Docthor, wid submission, I was wantin' to know what a good parish might
be--"

"Mike Lawdher, if I don't mistake, you ought to have good grazing down
in your meadows at Ballinard. What will you be charging for a month
or two's grass for this colt I've bought from my dacent friend, Denis
O'Shaughnessy, here? And, Mike, be rasonable upon a poor man, for we're
all poor, being only tolerated by the state we live under, and ought
not, of course, to be hard upon one another."

"An' what did he cost you, Docthor?" replied Mike, answering one
question by another; "what did you get for him, Denis?" he continued,
referring for information to Denis, to whom, on reflection, he thought
it more decorous to put the question.

Denis, however, felt the peculiar delicacy of his situation, and looked
at the priest, whilst the latter, under a momentary embarrassment,