“‘Lord save us!’ says I to myself, ’it’s a marcy and a wondher how he ever squeezed himself into that weeshy box.’  ‘Why thin, Sir,’ says I to him, ‘maybe your honour would have the civilitude to tell me your name.’

“‘With the greatest of pleasure, Felix,’ says he smiling; ’I’m called Mahoon, the Giant.’

“‘Tare an’ agers! are you though?  Well, if I thought’—­but he gave me no time to think; for calling on me to follow him, he began climbing up the Giant’s Stairs as asy as I’d walk up a ladder to the hay-loft.  Well, he was at the top afore you could cry ‘trapstick,’ and it wasn’t long till I was at the top too, and there we found a gate opening into the hill, and a power of lords and ladies waiting to resave Mahoon, who I larned was their king, and who had been away from his kingdom for twenty years, by rason of his being shut up in the box by some great fairy-man.

“Well, when we got inside the gates, I found myself in a most beautiful city, where nobody seemed to mind anything but diversion.  The music was the most illigant thing you ever hard in your born days, and there wasn’t one less than forty Munster pipers playing before King Mahoon and his friends, as they marched along through great broad streets,—­a thousand times finer than Great George’s-street, in Cork; for, my dears, there was nothing to be seen but goold, and jewels, and guineas, lying like sand under our feet.  As I had the little brown cap upon my head, I knew that none of the fairy people could see me, so I walked up cheek by jowl with King Mahoon himself, who winked at me to keep my toe in my brogue, which you may be sure I did, and so we kept on until we came to the king’s palace.  If other places were grand, this was ten times grander, for the very sight was fairly taken out of my eyes with the dazzling light that shone round about it.  In we went into the palace, through two rows of most engaging and beautiful young ladies; and then King Mahoon took his sate upon his throne, and put upon his head a crown of goold, stuck all over with di’monds, every one of them bigger than a sheep’s heart.  Of coorse there was a dale of compliments past amongst the lords and ladies till they got tired of them; and then they sat down to dinner, and, nabocklish! wasn’t there rale givings-out there, with cead mille phailtagh[2].  The whiskey was sarved out in tubs and buckets, for they’d scorn to drink ale or porter; and as for the ating, there was laygions of fat bacon and cabbage for the sarvants, and a throop of legs of mutton for the king and his coort.  Well, after we had all ate till we could hould no more, the king called out to clear the flure for a dance.  No sooner had he said the word, than the tables were all whipped away,—­the pipers began to tune their chaunters.  The king’s son opened the ball with a mighty beautiful young crather; but the mirinit I laid my eyes upon her I knew her at once for a neighbour’s daughter, one Anty Dooley, who had died a few months before,