RECOLLECTIONS OF THE IRISH BAR.
If the walls of the Dublin ‘Four Courts’ could speak, how many a pleasant story and witty repartee and sparkling bon-mot they could tell! Let me recall and string together some of these pearls of anecdote and wit, some of which, though perhaps not altogether new to lovers of anecdote, may well bear repetition.
The first Viscount Guillamore, when Chief Baron O’Grady, was remarkable for his dry humour and biting wit. The latter was so fine that its sarcasm was often unperceived by the object against whom the shaft was directed.
A legal friend, extremely studious, but in conversation notoriously dull, was once shewing off to him his newly-built house. The bookworm prided himself especially on a sanctum he had contrived for his own use, so secluded from the rest of the building that he could pore over his books in private quite secure from disturbance.
‘Capital!’ exclaimed the Chief Baron. ‘You surely could, my dear fellow, read and study here from morning till night, and no human being be one bit the wiser.’
A young and somewhat dull tyro at the bar pleading before him commenced: ‘My lord, my unfortunate client’—— then stopped, hemmed, hawed, hesitated. Again he began: ‘My lord, my most unfortunate client’—— Another stop, more hemming and confusion.
‘Pray go on, sir,’ said the Chief Baron. ‘So far the court is with you.’
In those days, before competitive examinations were known, men with more interest than brains got good appointments, for the duties of which they were wholly incompetent. Of such was the Honourable —— ——. He was telling Lord Guillamore of the summary way in which he disposed of matters in his court.
‘I say to the fellows that are bothering with foolish arguments, that there’s no use in wasting my time and their breath; for that all their talk only just goes in at one ear and out at the other.’
‘No great wonder in that,’ said O’Grady, ‘seeing that there’s so little between to stop it.’
It was this worthy, who being at a public dinner shortly after he got his place, had his health proposed by a waggish guest.
‘I will give you a toast,’ he said: ‘The Honourable —— ——, and long may he continue indifferently to administer justice.’ The health was drunk with much merriment, the object of it never perceiving what caused the fun.
Lord Guillamore could tell a story with inimitable humour. He used to vary his voice according to the speakers, and act as it were the scene he was describing, in a way infinitely diverting. Very droll was his mimicry of a dialogue between the guard of the mail and a mincing old lady with whom he once travelled from Cork to Dublin, in the old coaching days.
The coach had stopped to change horses, and the guard, a big red-faced jolly man, beaming with good-humour and civility, came bustling up to the window to see if the ‘insides’ wanted anything.
‘Guard!’ whispered the old lady.
‘Well, ma’am, what can I do for you?’
‘Could you’—in a faint voice—‘could you get me a glass of water?’
‘To be sure, ma’am; with all the pleasure in life.’
‘And guard!’—still fainter—‘I’d—hem—I’d—a—like it hot.’
‘Hot water! Oh, all right, ma’am! Why not, if it’s plazing to you?’
‘With a lump of sugar, guard, if you please.’
‘By all manner of means, ma’am.’
‘And—and—guard dear’—as the man was turning to go away—‘a small squeeze of lemon, and a little—just a thimbleful—of spirits through it.’
‘Och, isn’t that punch!’ shouted the guard. ‘Where was the good of beating about the bush? Couldn’t you have asked out for a tumbler of punch at once, ma’am, like a man!’
Another favourite story was of a trial at quarter-sessions in Mayo, which developed some of the ingenious resources of Paddy when he chooses to exercise his talent in an endeavour not to pay. A doctor had summoned a man for the sum of one guinea, due for attendance on the man’s wife. The medico proved his case, and was about to retire triumphant, when the defendant humbly begged leave to ask him a few questions. Permission was granted, and the following dialogue took place.
Defendant. ‘Docthor, you remember when I called on you?’
Doctor. ‘I do.’
Defendant. ‘What did I say?’
Doctor. ‘You said your wife was sick, and you wished me to go and see her.’
Defendant. ‘What did you say?’
Doctor. ‘I said I would, if you’d pay me my fee.’
Defendant. ‘What did I say?’
Doctor. ‘You said you’d pay the fee, if so be you knew what it was.’
Defendant. ‘What did you say?’
Doctor. ‘I said I’d take the guinea at first, and maybe more at the end, according to the sickness.’
Defendant. ‘Now, docthor, by vartue of your oath, didn’t I say: “Kill or cure, docthor, I’ll give you a guinea?” And didn’t you say: “Kill or cure, I’ll take it?”’
Doctor. ‘You did; and I agreed to the bargain. And I want the guinea accordingly.’
Defendant. ‘Now, docthor, by vartue of your oath answer this: Did you cure my wife?’
Doctor. ‘No; she’s dead. You know that.’
Defendant. ‘Then, docthor, by vartue of your oath answer this: Did you kill my wife?’
Doctor. ‘No; she died of her illness.’
Defendant (to the bench). ‘Your worship, see this. You heard him tell our bargain. It was to kill or cure. By vartue of his oath, he done neither!—and he axes the fee!’
The verdict, however, went against poor Pat, notwithstanding his ingenuity.
Something like the following story has been told before in these pages. It will, however, bear repetition. Mr F——, Clerk of the Crown for Limerick, was over six feet high and stout in proportion. He was the dread of the cabmen, and if their horses could have spoken, they would not have blessed him.
One day when driving in the outlets of Dublin, they came to a long and steep hill. Cabby got down, and walking alongside the cab, looked significantly in at the windows. ‘His honour’ knew very well what he meant; but the day was hot, and he was lazy and fat, and had no notion of taking the hint and getting out to ease the horse while ‘larding the lean earth’ himself. At last Paddy changed his tactics. Making a rush at the cab, he suddenly opened the door, and then slammed it to with a tremendous bang.
‘What’s that for?’ roared Mr F——, startled at the man’s violence and the loud report.
‘Whist, yer honour! Don’t say a word!’ whispered Paddy, putting his finger on his lips.
‘But what do you mean, sirrah?’ cried the fare.
‘Arrah, can’t ye hush, sir? Spake low now—do. Sure, ’tis letting on I am to the little mare that your honour’s got out to walk. Don’t let her hear you, and the craythur ’ll have more heart to face the hill if she thinks you’re not inside, and that ’tis only the cab that’s throubling her.’
Baron R——, one of the gravest and most decorous judges on the bench, had a younger brother singularly unlike him, who was a perpetual thorn in his side. A scapegrace at school, the youth would learn nothing, and was the torment of his teachers. Having been set a sum by one of the latter, he, after an undue delay, presented himself before the desk and held up his slate, at one corner of which appeared a pile of coppers.
‘What is the meaning of all this, sir?’ said the master.
‘Oh!’ cried the youth, ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but I really can’t help it. All the morning I’ve been working at that sum. Over and over again I’ve tried, but in spite of all I can do, it will not come right. So I’ve made up the difference in halfpence, and there it is on the slate.’
The originality of the device disarmed the wrath of the pedagogue, and young R—— was dismissed with his coppers to his place.
The youngster when grown up boasted an enormous pair of whiskers, of which he was very proud. One day a friend met him walking up Dame Street with one of these cherished bushy adornments shaved clean off, giving a most comical lop-sided appearance to his physiognomy.
‘Hollo, R——!’ he exclaimed, ‘what has become of your whisker?’
‘Lost it at play,’ he replied. ‘Regularly cleaned out last night at the gaming-table of every mortal thing I had—nothing left to wager but my whisker.’
‘And why, man, don’t you cut off the rest, and not have one side of your face laughing at the other?’
‘I’m keeping that for to-night,’ said the scamp with a wink, as he passed on.
The father of the Lord Chancellor—afterwards Lord Plunket—was a very simple-minded man. Kindly and unsuspicious, he was often imposed upon, and the Chancellor used to tell endless stories illustrative of his parent’s guileless nature.
One morning, Mr Plunket taking an early walk was overtaken by two respectable-looking men, carpenters apparently by trade, each carrying the implements of his work.
‘Good-morning, my friends,’ said the old gentleman; ‘you are early afoot. Going on a job, eh?’
‘Good-morrow kindly, sir; yes, we are; and a quare job too. The quarest and the most out-of-the-way you ever heard of, I’ll be bound, though you’ve lived long in the world, and heard and read of many a thing. Oh, you’ll never guess it, your honour, so I may as well tell at once. We’re going to cut the legs off a dead man.’
‘What!’ cried his hearer, aghast. ‘You don’t mean’——
‘Yes, indeed, ’tis true for me; and here’s how it come about. Poor Mary Neil’s husband—a carpenter like ourselves, and an old comrade—has been sick all the winter, and departed life last Tuesday. What with the grief and the being left on the wide world with her five orphans, and no one to earn bit or sup for them, the craythur is fairly out of her mind—stupid from the crying and the fret; for what does she do, poor woman, but send the wrong measure for the coffin; and when it come home it was ever so much too short! Barney Neil was a tall man; nigh six feet we reckoned him. He couldn’t be got into it, do what they would; and the poor craythur hadn’t what would buy another. Where would she get it, after the long sickness himself had, and with five childher to feed and clothe? So, your honour, all that’s in it is to cut the legs off him. Me and my comrade here is going to do it for the desolate woman. We’ll just take ’em off at the knee-joints and lay them alongside him in the coffin. I think, sir, now I’ve told you our job, you’ll say ’tis the quarest ever you heard of.’
‘Oh!’ cried the old gentleman, ‘such a thing must not be done. It’s impossible! How much will a new coffin cost?’
The carpenter named the sum, which was immediately produced, and bestowed on him with injunctions to invest forthwith in the necessary purchase.
The business, however, took quite an unexpected turn. Mr Plunket on his return home related his matutinal adventure to his family at breakfast, the future Chancellor, then a young barrister, being at the table. Before the meal was ended, the carpenters made their appearance, and with many apologies tendered back the coin they had received. He who had been spokesman in the morning explained that on seeing the gentleman in advance of them on the road, he had for a lark made a bet with his companion that he would obtain the money; which, having won his wager, he now refunded. Genuine Irish this!