AN IRISH ORIGINAL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2483, 31 May 1909, Page 3

AN IRISH ORIGINAL.

Well, Pat, how arc your potatoes turning out this year ?” “ Well, your Reverence, about as bad as bad could be. If you put a Hieland piper playing his pipes at wan good stalk, and walked from that till you came to another good one, you wouldn’t hear his •music. There’s the truth for you, now. An’ now, your Reverence, how can the landlord be expectin’ rint such times as

these? It's against nature. Did I tell you what I said to the agent lately?”

“ No.”

“Well, sure enough, I went to the office such a day ; and be the same token there was a bacon strike goin’ on in the country at the same time, and I says to the agent, ‘Sir,’ says I, ‘I have seven uood store pigs in me yard, an’ a lot of fine manure, an’ I’ve some av the finest hay in the parish, an’ I want nothin’ but a little time. I can pay ye well,’ says I, when I sell some of my little property.’ ‘The divil a day,’says he, 1 Mr. O’Mulligan’ (savin’ your Reverence’s presence for makin’ use of such a word), ‘ the divil a day longer can yc have,’ says he.. Well, me tlmper ri:;, your Reverence, for I’m a man who lives very near his tamper, as Mio savin, is ; and I says back again to 'him, I says, ‘To the divil I pitch you/ says I,‘where Darby Kccffe pitched the .lodge, and do your best,’ says I. But isn't it cruel, your Reverence, isn’t it cruel for me an’ the likes of me to be like this, under the scourge and under the harrow and under the axe and under the saw and ruder the fla.il and under the whip and under the hammer and under the bailiff and under the agent and under the peeler—isn’t it now?’’ Mr. O’Mulligan paused here to take breath, for we most imperfectly reproduce bis torrent of eloquence. In the interval we observed ; —“ King Solomon says, ‘Tire hand of the diligent maketb rich,’ so you should be well oft.” “Yes, your Reverence, that’s right - T

know man !s born to ‘industre, 1 My duties are very erroneous (ronerous), but, as Holy Scripture says, ‘ Work out your own Salvation, an' let us cast off the works of darkness ; blessed are the dead —for them I mourn.’ I was a man who wanst had £7OO of dry money, an’ now, savin’ your presence, I haven’t the price of a shave, an’ that’s fourpence, left of it; an’ what’s more, I’ve a young, weighty family to ‘contind ’ with. Me money is all gone with lawyers an’ rint an’ costs, for I’m not that ‘ insipid ’ drunkard at all that the people says I am. If your Reverence would only be plased to look at them some day, I could show you me papers, for 1 have ns many of them as would boil a pot of spuds.” “ It’s a great pity you were not made s lawyer yourself, Mr. O’Mulligon ; you would have been a great man to address

a jury

“Well now, sir, don’t be joking me ; it’s yourself is the pleasant gentleman. Still, I have no great taste for the law ; there was a great scholar in this parish wanst, an’ he could spake Latin like tho alphabet ; and I heard tell he used to say that there was a piece of Latin about a j man not gettm’ to be a bad man all at wanst, an’ the way he give it out himself was—‘ It takes two years to make an attorney.’ It’s well I knows them. Sure enough I wanst took a bill of costs to a friend to look over, and by-nnd-by he says— 1 Pat, this man will be saved yet/ I says be. ‘What do you mane by that?' j says I. ‘I mane by it/ says he, ‘that ; Attorney So-and-so isn’t that bad man after a!!/ says be, ‘ if this is his bill,’ says he, 4 he have a chance of gettin’ to heaven after a!!,’says he. See that now, sir! Well, after all, it’s worth while to get a rowl of the Coort out of yer money, any- | way. Tom Luby, who was half-aiqual to a lawyer himself, because he was so often j at Sessions and Assizes wid cases, tuk j great pride out of a clever attorney; an' j he used to say he had more roguery in ( his belly than fifty min. But I must be j taking lave of yon now, sir, an’ I hope j Mr. Balfour will call in here before he goes home—l can let his honour see that | I haven’t a trescawn of praties in me whole little garden, glory be to God !” But how poor and faint an idea all this conveys of the volubility of Mr. O’Mulligan! Fuller said that the bare, bald style of the schoolmen was to be attributed to design, “ lest an; of the vermin of equivocation should hide themselves under the nap of their words.” Ip. whatever other respects the poorest Irishman may be bald and bare, he never experiences any of the pangs of poverty of language, — Spectator.