* 'F(9r Richer for Poorer ' 2 5 



to bring water from a pond near by for the garden or for 

 sprinkling the driveway. Father asked this old man in a 

 bantering way what capacity his cart had. The old man 

 told him. "How many trips do you have to make in the 

 course of a year?" And the old man told him how many. 

 "Well," said Father, "I have a sovereign for you if you 

 can figure out how many gallons of water you haul from 

 one end of the season to the other." "Oh," replied the old 

 man, "that's too easy. I haul all the water you don't see in 

 that pond there now." 



We are inclined to laugh at the Irish, to be impatient 

 with them sometimes, but deep in our hearts we love them 

 and admire them for their bravery, their loyalty, their love 

 of poetry and flowers, their kindness to animals, and their 

 unfailingly warm hearts. In the words of the old song, 

 "Who then can blame us if Ireland is famous for murther 

 and whiskey and beauty and love?" 



After our visit to Ireland, we crossed over to London 

 for a few days before taking the express from Calais to 

 Brindisi to catch the boat for Egypt. At London I went to 

 the office of Thomas Cook and bought a skeleton ticket 

 which covered a good many of the inevitable steamship 

 runs, such as Port Said to Aden, Aden to Bombay, Calcutta 

 to Rangoon, Yokohama to San Francisco. This consisted 

 of a mass of coupons pinned together which were to be 

 exchanged for steamship tickets. These coupons I inadvert- 

 ently put in Rosamond's trunk. Then this trunk caused our 

 first marital argument. It was a veritable leviathan of a 

 trunk. I have never seen another one so large. I said, "Buy 

 ten little trunks that can be easily handled and let's ship 

 that white elephant of yours home.'* 



