I never saw much of Irish society out of our own county. Once, when I was eighteen, my father and I went a tour of visits to his relations in Connaught, travelling, as was necessary in those days, very slowly with post-horses to our carriage, my maid on the box, and obliged to stop at inns on the way. Some of these inns were wretched places. I remember in one finding a packet of letters addressed to some attorney, under my bolster! At another, this dialogue took place between me and the waiter:—
“What can we have for dinner?”
“Anything you please, Ma’am. Anything you please.”
“Well, but exactly what can we have?”
(Waiter, triumphantly): “You can have a pair of ducks.”
“I am sorry to say Mr. Cobbe cannot eat ducks. What else?”
“They are very fine ducks, Ma’am.”
“I dare say. But what else?”
“You might have the ducks boiled, Ma’am!”
“No, no. Can we have mutton?”