IRISH WITS 



the doctor that I can't be disobeying orders. . . . And 

 begorra, she's due this minute! Up into the signal-box 

 with you. And down with that signal, so the express can 

 get by/ says he. And as Tim starts off at a great pace, 

 Whalen shouts after him, ' And I'm sure I hope ye 11 get 

 it to work, Tim, for it's terrible stiff it is, that same signal, 

 and it at danger ! ' 



" Well, whether he had winked at Tim, or what, but Tim 

 worked and worked. 



" ' I can't get it to move,' he says. ' Will you come up 

 yourself, Mr. Whalen, sir, and have a try ? ' 

 " And, oh," says Miss Margaret, in fits of laughter, " the 

 way the two of them went on in that signal-box, and the 

 way Whalen pumped and pulled, and at last he cries, 

 ' There's no help for it, it's stuck ! And sure the com- 

 pany can't blame me, if the machinery's out of order,' 

 says he. ' Well, there's wan good thing, your riverence, 

 the thrain 'ull have to stop now, anyhow/" 

 We laugh a good deal during those pleasant meals at 

 Kilcoultra. Not one dull moment does the house hold 

 for us, and we don't want any better company than that 

 of the two dear ladies. 



"We've got," Miss Caroline, the elder, explains to me 

 carefully, " a very careful coachman, a very steady man, 

 so you needn't be the least nervous driving out with us. 

 He was selected, indeed, because he could be trusted. It 

 wouldn't do for us unprotected women, you know," she 

 says in all seriousness, "to be risking our necks with a 

 tipsy coachman." 



Two days we are driven by this paragon. The third day 

 there sits a stranger on the box. 



281 



