The jarvey thought a moment, and replied, "Maybe ye think so, but begorrah, it ain't a patch on the small-pox scare!" Was that meant?
The poor Saxon "towrist"—what he may suffer in the Emerald Isle! There is a story on record of three Irishmen rushing away from the race meeting at Punchestown to catch a train back to Dublin. At the moment a train from a long distance pulled up at the station, and the three men scrambled in. In the carriage was seated one other passenger. As soon as they had regained their breath, one said:
"Pat, have you got th' tickets?"
"What tickets? I've got me loife; I thought I'd have lost that gettin' in th' thrain. Have you got 'em, Moike?"
"Oi, begorrah, I haven't."
"Oh, we're all done for thin," said the third. "They'll charge us roight from the other soide of Oireland."
The old gentleman looked over his newspaper and said:
"You are quite safe, gintlemen; wait till we get to the next station."
They all three looked at each other. "Bedad, he's a directhor,—we're done for now entoirely."
But as soon as the train pulled up the little gentleman jumped out and came back with three first-class tickets. Handing them to the astonished strangers, he said, "Whist, I'll tell ye how I did it. I wint along the thrain—'Tickets plaze, tickets plaze,' I called, and these belong to three Saxon towrists in another carriage."