"Well," said Lord Eldon, "I hope they will fit the rascal."
⁂
That kind of wit, peculiar to the Irish, and commonly called Hibernianism, is an apparent congruity in things essentially incongruous. In fact, it expresses what is apparently rational, but in reality utterly irrational.
Thus, when an Irishman was told that one of Dr. Arnott's patent stoves would save half the usual fuel, he exclaimed to his wife: "Arrah! thin I'll buy two and save it all, my jewel."
We have nothing in French wit that can properly be compared to Hibernianism, except perhaps the gasconnade at times, but in the gasconnade there is no humor, the essence of it is exaggeration.
"You often forget to close the shutters of the ground-floor rooms at night," an Irishman would say to his servant; "one of these fine mornings I shall wake up murdered in my bed." I do not know that friend Paddy has ever perpetrated this one, but he is quite capable of it.
⁂
During the famous Michelstown Inquiry, Pat Casey was examined. He had seen the affray, hidden behind a wall.
"Was that brave, to hide behind a wall?" said the lawyer.
"Well, sor," said Pat, "better be a coward for foive minutes than to be dead for the rest of your loife."