The Lord Mayor of the period who sat beside him was a tallow chandler, and the same spokesman shouted out:—­

’Three cheers for his grease the Lord Mayor just back from the races at Tallagh.’

That sort of thing seems to be particularly indigenous, the only parallel being when undergraduates or medical students get gathered together.

The eloquence of Irish members in the House of Commons has really nothing to do with my reminiscences, but I remember one occasion when it was uncommonly well excelled by a stolid Englishman.

Fergus O’Connor—­an Irishman, as his name betrays—­was an ardent Chartist, and before the Reform Bill was introduced he said in the House that he had been accused of being a personal enemy of King William’s.  This was quite untrue, for if there were only good laws he did not care if the devil were King of England.

Sir Robert Peel replied:—­

’When the honourable member is gratified by seeing the sovereign of his choice on the throne of these realms, I hope he will enjoy, and I am sure he will deserve, the confidence of the Crown.’

Whilst I am anecdotal, perhaps I had better say something about books into which my stories have been pressed.  I was always given to telling tales, but of course my great time was when Lord Morris and I would sit trying to cap one another.  If he were ever too idle to remember an anecdote of his own, he would reel off one of mine:  as for his own fund of stories and humour ever approaching exhaustion, that was not to be thought of.  He was far and away the wittiest man I ever met, and if I do not quote one of his tales on this page it is because no single sample can show the superb richness of his vintage, and more than one of his brand will be found scattered in the present volume.

I gave a good many anecdotes to my dear old friend Mr. W.R.  Le Fanu—­cheeriest of fishermen, kindest of jolly good fellows—­for his garrulous book.  He observes in his preface that he makes his first attempt at writing in his eight-and-seventieth year.  I am nearly twenty-four months his senior when thus far on the road of these reminiscences.  I also echo another phrase of his:—­

’I trust I have said nothing to hurt the feelings of any of my fellow-countrymen.’

Just one quotation—­and only a little one—­which is not mine, but the warning which Sheridan Le Fanu, author of that capital novel Uncle Silas, gave in the Dublin University Magazine against matrimony:—­

’Marriage is like the smallpox.  A man may have it mildly, but he generally carries the marks of it with him to his grave.’

And very true too in his division of an Irishman’s life into three parts:—­

‘The first is that in which he is plannin’ and conthrivin’ all sorts of villainy and rascality; that is the period of youth and innocence.  The second is that in which he is puttin’ into practice the villainy and rascality he contrived before; that is the prime of life or the flower of manhood.  The third and last period is that in which he is makin’ his soul and preparin’ for another world; that is the period of dotage.’