'First and second go alike:
The third throw takes the bite.'
I express myself confident of outwitting or circumventing a certain man who is notoriously cautious and wide-awake, and the listener says to me:—'Oh, what a chance you have—catch a weasel asleep' (general).
In connexion with this may be given another proverb: of a notoriously wide-awake cautious man, it is said:—'He sleeps a hare's sleep—with one eye open.' For it was said one time that weasels were in the habit of sucking the blood of hares in their sleep; and as weasels had much increased, the hares took to the plan of sleeping with one eye at a time; 'and when that's rested and slep enough, they open it and shut the other.' (From 'The Building of Mourne,' by Dr. Robert Dwyer Joyce.)
This last perpetuates a legend as old as our literature. In one of the ancient Irish classical tales, the story is told of a young lady so beautiful that all the young chiefs of the territory were in love with her and laying plans to take her off. So her father, to defeat them, slept with only one eye at a time.
CHAPTER IX.
EXAGGERATION AND REDUNDANCY.
I have included both in this Chapter, for they are nearly related; and it is often hard to draw a precise line of distinction.