I heard a bathing story from a vivacious Irish lady at an evening gathering that may never have seen American printer's ink.
She said that in former times a lady stopping at a primitive hotel in the west of Ireland asked for a bath. She was told by the maid that a colonel was performing his ablutions in the room in which the bathing pan was set.
"But he'll not be long, I'm thinkin', miss," said the maid.
This lady waited awhile in her room, and at last growing impatient, she stepped out into the hall and found the maid with her eye to the keyhole of the bathroom.
On hearing the lady's footstep she turned around quite unabashed and said, "He'll be ready in a minute, miss. He's just after gettin' out of the tub."
This story was told me in a drawing-room with many young people present, so it must be true, but candor compels me to say that I have observed nothing of the kind on this trip. There are no terrors like those of a bath in an English tub of which I had occasion to speak last year.
Speaking of anecdotes, I heard one that concerned the father of the man who showed us through the lovely ruins of McSwiney's castle at Rathmullan. Son, father, and grandfather have all in their turn acted as caretakers of the ruins, and proud enough is the son of his position.
But it is of the father that the story goes.
The wife of an English admiral, whose family were in the habit of being buried in the graveyard adjoining the abbey whenever they died, departed this life, and to "Jimmy" fell the task of digging her grave.