After a while, fortified by the champagne, the Mayoress grew more courageous, and, admiring the gentleman in full uniform on her right, said to him:—­

‘Might I be so bowld as to ask whether you are Lord Plunket?’

‘No,’ he replied, with a smile, ‘I am not.’

‘Would you mind telling me who you are, for I’m sure I don’t know?’

‘I am the Duke of Connaught,’ complaisantly replied her neighbour, upon which she gasped:—­’Oh, God in Heaven, another of them!’ and subsided into unbroken silence for the rest of the repast.

Another amusing case of mistaken identity occurred when Mr. Gladstone was concocting his treasonable Home Rule Bill.  He had been informed that Lord Clonbrook would be able to give him invaluable information, so he told his wife to ask him to luncheon.  She, however, mistaking the name, invited the late Lord Clonmel, a jovial sportsman known to his friends by the nickname of ‘Old Sherry.’

Somewhat surprised at being thus honoured, Lord Clonmel consulted a few cronies, who all advised him to accept, and in due course he proceeded to Downing Street, where he found the French Ambassador was the only other guest.  It is possible that Mr. Gladstone thought him a little odd and his attire somewhat demonstrative, but he was prepared for any eccentricity in an Irish peer, and hardly noticed how excellently his guest was doing justice to the meal, whilst preserving impenetrable silence.  Directly it was over, the Prime Minister took him apart, and said:—­’Now I want you, privately and confidentially, to give me your view of the exact relation between landlord and tenant in Ireland.’

‘Absolute hell, my dear boy, absolute hell,’ was the emphatic reply of the old sportsman.

That confidential conversation went no further; but I have never been sure that Lord Clonmel in the least overstated the case.

This renewed allusion to the lower regions that appears so closely connected with Irish affairs reminds me of an amusing incident which took place in a Dublin tram.  Two members of the fair sex were discussing their plans for the summer in the interior of a car, and one of them in a mincing brogue said to the other:—­

’I think I shall go to England this summer; it is so difficult in Ireland to get away from the vulgar Irish.’

‘Faix,’ screamed in much indignation an old Biddy sitting opposite, ’if it’s the vulgar Irish you want to avoid, and the English you want to be meeting, it’s to hell you must go, and you’d better go there this summer.’

That’s the sort of quick retort which a Scotchman calls Irish insolence, but then, who expects appreciation of real wit from any one canny?  Wit is irresponsible, a truly Irish propensity.

The two mincing young women were almost as much disgusted as another old lady who found herself opposite a stalwart working man, who incensed her by his frequent expectoration.  Gathering her skirts round her somewhat ample form, she called the conductor and asked:—­