PADDY GOOD AT REPARTEE. 271 



turned over and over, and at length, holding it in 

 the palm of his hand, said, " Half-a-crown, yer anner ! " 

 "Well," said I, " Paddy, you've no right to ask for 

 anything you know that as well as I do." " Haif- 

 a-crown," again said Paddy, " why sure yer anner 

 would niver be giving me half-a-crown for all that 

 way ? Lastewise, I mane, sure it's very little, yer 

 anner!" "Well," said I at last, "you Paddies seem 

 to be just as discontented as our people are in 

 England. You must be better off here in Ireland 

 than they are in England, or you'd never turn up 

 your nose at half-a-crown when you have no right 

 to expect anything." "Bitter aff," said he, "sure 

 and we are that same, yer anner. If I was nat bitter 

 aff in Ireland than I would be in Ingland, sure and 

 would not I go to Ingland, yer anner ? " Well, what 

 could I say ? I was fairly beaten. 



There were very few railways in existence in my 

 Irish fishing days, but there was one from Dublin 

 that ran to Mullingar. I got upon a car in Dublin 

 one morning to join the rail, which was on the other 

 side the Liffey, I remember. The car-driver seemed 

 bent upon frightening me to death by driving my 

 knees and fishing-rod case, and everything that pro- 

 truded at all from that most horrible of all horrible 



