Others may hail the joys of Spring,
    When birds and buds alike are growing;
  Some the Summer days may sing,
    When sowing, mowing, on are going. 
  Old Winter, with his hoary locks,
    His frosty face and visage murky,
  May suit some very jolly cocks,
    Who like roast-beef, mince-pies, and turkey: 
  But give me Autumn—­yes, I’m Autumn’s child—­
    For then—­no declarations can be filed.

* * * * *

TOM CONNOR’S DILEMMA.

A TRUE TALE.

SHOWING HOW READY WIT MAY SUPPLY THE PLACE OF READY MONEY.

Tom Connor was a perfect specimen of the happy, careless, improvident class of Irishmen who think it “time enough to bid the devil good morrow when they meet him,” and whose chief delight seems to consist in getting into all manner of scrapes, for the mere purpose of displaying their ingenuity of getting out of them again.  Tom, at the time I knew him, had passed the meridian of his life; “he had,” as he used to say himself, “given up battering,” and had luckily a small annuity fallen to him by the demise of a considerate old aunt who had kindly popped off in the nick of time.  And on this independence Tom had retired to spend all that remained to him of a merry life at a pleasant little sea-port town in the West of Ireland, celebrated for its card-parties and its oyster-clubs.  These latter social meetings were held by rotation at the houses of the members of the club, which was composed of the choicest spirits of the town.  There Doctor McFadd, relaxing the dignity of professional reserve, condescended to play practical jokes on Corney Bryan, the bothered exciseman; and Skinner, the attorney, repeated all Lord Norbury’s best puns, and night after night told how, at some particular quarter sessions, he had himself said a better thing than ever Norbury uttered in his life.  But the soul of the club was Tom Connor—­who, by his inexhaustible fund of humorous anecdotes and droll stories, kept the table in a roar till a late hour in the night, or rather to an early hour in the morning.  Tom’s stories usually related to adventures which had happened to himself in his early days; and as he had experienced innumerable vicissitudes of fortune, in every part of the world, and under various characters, his narratives, though not remarkable for their strict adherence to truth, were always distinguished by their novelty.

One evening the club had met as usual, and Tom had mixed his first tumbler of potheen punch, after “the feast of shells” was over, when somebody happened to mention the name of Edmund Kean, with the remark that he had once played in a barn in that very town.

“True enough,” said Tom.  “I played in the same company with him.”

“You! you!” exclaimed several voices.