In those days religious feeling ran pretty high—­I will not go so far as to say it has entirely died down to-day—­and the usual Protestant toast was:—­

‘The Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender.’

Now, Jerry was a Roman Catholic, none the less earnest because he had a merry way with him.  On a certain Friday he was seen to be fasting by a very foppish barrister, who thought a great deal of himself.

He remarked to Jerry, with unnecessary impertinence:—­

‘Sir, it appears you have some of the Pope in your stomach.’

To which Jerry, quick as a pistol-shot, retorted:—­

‘And you have the whole of the Pretender in your head,’ after which there was the devil to pay.

There was a certain Chancellor in Ireland who was born a few years after his father and mother had separated.  As he did not like Jerry, he used to make a great fuss about how he should pronounce his name.  At last in Court one day he burst out:—­

’Pray tell me what you wish me to call you—­Mr. Kellegher, or Mr. Kellaire?’

’Call me anything you like, my lud, so long as you call me born in wedlock.’

The Chancellor did not score that time.

At one time there were grave complaints made about the light-hearted way in which Jerry handled his cases, and his practice fell off.  He was conversing with a very stupid judge, lately elevated to the Bench, and observed:—­

’It’s a very extraordinary world:  you have risen by your gravity, and I have fallen by my levity.’

He had a son who, in my time, had a large practice at the Bar, but I never came across him, nor did I ever hear that there was anything remarkable about him, except that he was not so witty as his father, which was not wonderful.

After all, as Jerry was before my own experience, I must not delay over him, so I will only give one more tale about him, and pass on.

When Lord Avonmore got his peerage for voting for the Union, he had his patent of nobility read out at a dinner-party, and it commenced, ‘George, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.’

‘Stop,’ cried Jerry, ’I object to that.  The consideration is set out too early in the deed.’

This long digression over, I revert to my father about whose respectable practice at the Four Courts I know nothing except that he allowed others to become judges, and did not find solicitors putting his services up to auction.

By the death of his elder brother, he succeeded to a property, near Dingle, on which he went to live and then got married, which was the wisest thing that he could do.

My mother was Mary Hickson, and her descent was this wise.