SEVENTH EMPTYING. 119 



A candidate for Parliament anxious to make sure of a 

 doubtful voter, sent the latter's wife a magnificent pine-apple 

 by way of a beginning. Meeting the voter a few days later, 

 the candidate said, " Well, John, how did you like the pine ? " 

 " Pretty well, thank you, sir, but may be we poor folk do not 

 understand how to deal wi' these faldedals, like ye quality." 

 " Did not you enjoy it ? " " Oh ! yes, sir, but my missus 

 she were a bit bothered how to cook it." " Cook it ? " 

 " Yes, sir, so at last she just boiled it wi' a leg of mutton ! " 



" Divvel a [fish there is in this river, sorr," said a raw 

 boned Irishman to his employer, " many's a time in ould days, 

 before I killed the big pike, that I've took 'em in buckets full ; 

 sorry a wan yez'll find now." " And what had the killing of 

 the big pike to do with it ? " " Troth, sorr, an' it's a quare 

 story, but it's myself that will tell it yez. Just down by 

 them big flag- weeds there, where the river runs so shtill and 

 quiet loike, there used to be a foine pike, maybe a hundred 

 pound weight, maybe more ; anyways I don't know, for I 

 killed him outright, and no one seen him." " You killed him 

 and yet you didn't see him ? " " That's it, sorr, thrue for 

 yez. They're mighty quare things are fish, sorr, nothing 

 quarer unless it be a young woman. Well, annyways, this 

 pike had come to know everything that had a hook in it, and 

 not one of them would he look at ; throth sorr, manny's the 

 time I have fished for him, and half the village as well, sorr, 

 with everything mortal man could think of, onless it may be 

 an infant, and that sorr, though there is many purtends they 

 are ready to give 'em away, they will foight shy when they 

 know yez are wanting thum for pike baits. And then, sorr, 

 I set to work to see how I could desave the blagyard honestly 

 and kill him for the glory. An' afther mighty perplexity 

 what kind of a bait I should set for him it came into my 

 head all of a minute, sorr. In my father's house there was 



