'But you know I have not got any.'
'Good Heavens, you don't mean to say you have cleaned your nails?'
Though he was an out-and-out Fenian, Ronayne was as honest a man as I ever met, and he was considered one of the most amusing men in the House of Commons.
The attorneys in Cork at one time formed quite a small coterie, who divided all the business until it grew too much for them, one, Mr. Paul Wallace, being especially harassed with briefs.
At length a barrister named Graves came down from Dublin, and was introduced to Wallace by another attorney with the remark:—
'Counsel are very necessary.'
'Yes,' said Wallace; 'as a matter of fact, we are all being driven to our graves.'
At Kanturk Sessions, Mr. Philip O'Connell was consulted by a client about the recovery of a debt. He at once saw that the defence would be a pleading of the statute of limitations, so he told his client that if he could get a man to swear that the debtor had admitted the debt within the last six years, he would succeed, but not otherwise.
O'Connell went off to take the chair at a Bar dinner to a new County Court judge.
As the dessert was being set on the table, a loud knock came at the door, which was immediately behind the chairman.