When he came back to Tralee, he said to a friend:—­

’Who do you think I saw, Mick, but that scoundrel of a corpse sitting in a ditch eating a piece of pig’s cheek.’

That reminds me of another coffin story.

A man who lived in Cork was notorious for being always behind time for everything.  He knew his failing, and was rather touchy about it.

One night, stumbling out of a whisky shop, he lurched into a yard, fell against a door, which gave way, and finished his slumbers peacefully in the shed, which was the storehouse of an undertaker.

In the morning he awoke, rubbed his eyes in astonishment at the strange surroundings amid which he found himself, and after recollecting his own pet proclivity, as he ruefully surveyed all the empty coffins, ejaculated:—­

‘Just my usual luck.  Late for the Resurrection.’

Which recalls another tale:—­

A man was dead drunk, so some friends, for a lark, brought him into a dark room, lit a lot of phosphorus, and made up one of their party in the guise of a devil before they flung a bucket of water over their victim.

‘Where am I?’ asked the fellow, looking round ‘skeered.’

‘In hell,’ retorted the devil, with exaggerated solemnity.

’Heaven bless your honour, as you know the ways of the place, will you get me a drop of drink?’

But a mere drop does not suffice as a friend of mine found out.

He was wont to reward his car-driver with a glass of whisky, and gave it to him in an antique glass, which did not contain as much as cabby wished for.

‘That’s a very quare glass, captain,’ says he.

‘Yes,’ replied Captain Stevens; ‘that’s blown glass.’

‘Why, Captain,’ says the carman, ’the man must have been damned short in the breath that blew that.’

This would no doubt have been the opinion of a Dublin carman who was in the habit of bringing a present to an acquaintance of mine from a lady living at some distance, and being recompensed with a glass of grog.  By degrees, however, the water grew to be the predominant partner in the union within the glass, so at last he burst out in disgust:—­

’If you threw a tumbler of whisky over Carlisle Bridge, it would be better grog than that at the Pigeon House.’

Which being interpreted into cockneyism would read, ’If you threw a glass of whisky over Westminster Bridge it would be better grog than that at Greenwich Pier.’

Still all consumption of liquor is not confined to Ireland, and I well remember when I was with Bogue in Scotland, that one night he had a fellow-farmer of the very best type to dine with him, and about ten o’clock, with much difficulty, my man and I hoisted him into the saddle.

An hour afterwards we heard a knock at the door, and a voice rather quaveringly inquired:—­

‘Pleash, can you tell me the way to X., I have lost my way?’