Which observation recalls to my mind the story of a gentleman in a Turkish bath asking a friend to dinner, and saying:—­

‘Don’t mind dressing; come just as you are.’

Another misunderstood answer was that of the absent-minded man who entered a hansom and began to read a paper.

‘Where to?’ at last cabby asked laconically.

‘Drive to the usual place.’

’I’m afraid I have too much on the slate there, sir, unless you pay my footing.’

‘Oh, go to hell,’ retorted the other in a rage.

’It’s outside the radius, sir, and it will be a steep pull for my old horse after we’ve dropped you.’

The light-heartedness of the Celt is another feature which strikes the least observant stranger.

An Irishman has been described as a man who confided his soul to the priest, and his body to the British Government, whilst he holds himself devoid of any vestige of responsibility for the care of either.

Here is another tale, illustrative of his contentment.

A philosopher, in search of happiness, was told by a wise man that if he got the shirt of a perfectly happy man and put it on, he would himself become happy.

The philosopher wandered over the world, but could find no man whose happiness had not some flaw, until he fell in with an Irishman; with whom he promptly began to bargain for his shirt, only to find he had not one to his back.

From philosophy to the deuce is not a big stride, according to the view of those folk who jibe at political economy and all the abstract of virtues and governments.  So, on the tail of their fancy, I am reminded of another story about the devil—­a very large number of Irish stories are connected with him, because in a very special sense he is the unauthorised patron saint of the sinners of the country, and he has had far too much to say to its government into the bargain.

An Englishman, in the witless way in which Saxons do address Irishmen, asked a labourer by the wayside:—­

‘If the devil came by, do you think he would take me or you?’

The labourer never hesitated, but replied:—­

‘He’d take me, your honour.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Oh, he would,’ says he, ‘because he’s sure of your honour at any time.’

The Irishman is not so black as he may seem to the Saxon, who reads with disgust the horrors that mar the beauty of the Emerald Isle, and I should say that his finest trait is patience under adversity.  No nation, for example, could have more calmly endured the terrible sufferings of the famine, more especially as the high-strung nerves of the Celt render him physically and mentally the very reverse of a stoic.

Again, in no other nation are the family ties closer.

The first thought of those who emigrate to America is to remit money to the old folk in the cabin at home.  So soon as the emigrants have obtained a reasonable degree of comfort they will send home the passage money to pay for bringing out younger brothers or sisters to them.