[Illustration:  O’CONNELL]

THE TINKER

“O’Connell was a great man.  I never saw him, but I heard of his name.  One time I saw his picture in a paper, where they were giving out meal, where Mrs. Gaynor’s is and I kissed the picture of him.  They were laughing at me for doing that, but I had heard of his good name.  There was some poor man, a tinker, asked help of him one time in Dublin, and he said, ‘I will put you in a place where you will get some good thing.’  So he brought him to a lodging in a very grand house and put him in it.  And in the morning he began to make saucepans, and he was making them there, and the shopkeeper that owned the house was mad at him to be doing that, and making saucepans in so grand a house, and he wanted to get him out of it, and he gave him a good sum of money to go out.  He went back and told that to O’Connell, and O’Connell said, ’Didn’t I tell you I would put you in the way to get some good thing?’”

A PRESENT

“There was a gentleman sent him a present one time, and he bade a little lad to bring it to him.  Shut up in a box it was, and he bade the boy to give it to himself, and not to open the box.  So the little lad brought it to O’Connell to give it to him.  ‘Let you open it yourself,’ says O’Connell.  So he opened it, and whatever was in it blew up and made an end of the boy, and it would have been the same with O’Connell if he had opened it.”

HIS STRATEGY

“O’Connell was a grand man; the best within the walls of the world.  He never led anyone astray.  Did you hear that one time he turned the shoes on his horses?  There were bad members following him.  I cannot say who they were, for I will not tell what I don’t know.  He got a smith to turn the shoes, and when they came upon his track, he went east and they went west.  Parnell was no bad man, but Dan O’Connell’s name went up higher in praises.”

THE MAN WAS GOING TO BE HANGED

“I saw O’Connell in Galway one time, and I couldn’t get anear him.  All the nations of the world were gathered there to see him.  There were a great many he hung and a great many he got off from death, the dear man.  He went into a town one time, and into a hotel, and he asked for his dinner.  And he had a frieze dress, for he was very simple, and always a clerk along with him.  And when the dinner was served to him, ’Is there no one here,’ says he, ’to sit along with me; for it is seldom I ever dined without company.’  ’If you think myself good enough to sit with you,’ says the man of the hotel, ‘I will do it.’  So the two of them sat to the dinner together, and O’Connell asked was there any news in the town.  ‘There is,’ says the hotel man, ’there is a man to be hung to-morrow.’  ‘Oh, my!’ says O’Connell, ’what