'Drive to the usual place.'
'I'm afraid I have too much on the slate there, sir, unless you pay my footing.'
'Oh, go to hell,' retorted the other in a rage.
'It's outside the radius, sir, and it will be a steep pull for my old horse after we've dropped you.'
The light-heartedness of the Celt is another feature which strikes the least observant stranger.
An Irishman has been described as a man who confided his soul to the priest, and his body to the British Government, whilst he holds himself devoid of any vestige of responsibility for the care of either.
Here is another tale, illustrative of his contentment.
A philosopher, in search of happiness, was told by a wise man that if he got the shirt of a perfectly happy man and put it on, he would himself become happy.
The philosopher wandered over the world, but could find no man whose happiness had not some flaw, until he fell in with an Irishman; with whom he promptly began to bargain for his shirt, only to find he had not one to his back.
From philosophy to the deuce is not a big stride, according to the view of those folk who jibe at political economy and all the abstract of virtues and governments. So, on the tail of their fancy, I am reminded of another story about the devil—a very large number of Irish stories are connected with him, because in a very special sense he is the unauthorised patron saint of the sinners of the country, and he has had far too much to say to its government into the bargain.