PUNT SHOOTING. 117 



Singer's can be seen distinctly. He took out a kind 

 of patent for it, and he was to have made his fortune 

 by it ; but, alas ! for poor old Singer, those that 

 got hold of his invention promised everything and 

 performed nothing. It is often the case that an 

 honest man finds brains, and that dishonest men 

 make use of them ; so it was in this case. The 

 poor old fellow, from trusting too much to their 

 sense of righteous dealing, was fairly swindled out 

 of his invention ; and at last, if he wanted a "" Singer's 

 compass " for himself he would have to buy one. 

 The poor old man was all but mad upon the subject, 

 and I never met him but he would spin me a yarn 

 about the injustice he had received. And I do 

 verily believe that the constant anxiety of mind, 

 and fretting over the case, had very much assisted 

 Anno Domini in making him more infirm and 

 aged than he would otherwise have been, for 

 though an old man he was made of very tough 

 materials. When I last saw him he looked more 

 like some antediluvian remains of a man that had 

 been dug out of an Irish peat bog than anything 

 else, for he was pretty near skin and bone ; and 

 when I told him how dried up and bad he looked, 

 he said, " Oh ! did not you hear what a lot of blood 



