Before two o’clock the magnates of the fair had left it, taking with them the cream of its contents, and in humbler people such a hunger began to assert itself as came near bringing even crubeens and Peggy’s leg within the sphere of practical politics.  While slowly struggling through the swarming street the perfume of mutton chops stole exquisitely forth from the door of one of the hotels, accompanied by the sound of a subdued fusillade of soda-water corks; over the heads of the filthy press of people round the entrance and the thirsty throng at the bar might be seen a procession of gaitered legs going upstairs to luncheon.  It seemed an excellent idea.  The air within was blue with tobacco smoke, flushed henchwomen staggered to and fro with arms spread wide across trays of whiskies and sodas, opening doors revealed rooms full of men, mutton chops and mastication.  There was wildness in the eye of the attendant as she took the order for yet another luncheon.  She fled, with the assurance that it would be ready immediately, yet subsequent events suggested that even while she spoke the sheep that was to respond to that thirty-fifth order for mutton chops was browsing in the pastures of Bandon.

For eyes that had last looked on food at 7 A.M., neither the view of the street obtainable from the first floor parlour window, nor even the contemplation of the remarkable sacred pictures that adorned its walls, had the interest they might have held earlier in the day, and the dirty cruet-stand on the dirtier tablecloth was endued with an almost hypnotic fascination in its suggestion of coming sustenance.  At the end of the first hour a stupor verging on indifference had set in; it was far on in the second when the dish of fried mutton chops, the hard potatoes, and the tepid whiskies and sodas were flung upon the board.  No preliminary to a week’s indigestion had been neglected, and a deserved success was the result.

The business of the fair was still transacted at large throughout the hotel.  From behind the mound of mutton chops a buyer shoved a roll of dirty one-pound notes round the potato dish, and after due haggling received back one, according to the mystic Irish custom of “luck-penny”.  On the sofa two farmers carried on a transaction in which the swap of a colt, boot money, and luck-penny were blended into one trackless maze of astuteness and arithmetic.  On the wall above them a print in which Ananias and Sapphira were the central figures gave a simple and suitable finish to the scene.

THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.