'Glass of grog, if I drink you now, you'll cut the legs from under me. And yet I want you, and I will not do without you. So I know what I will do. I'll go to bed and I'll drink you there, for I don't care a damn what you do to me then.'
The indifference of a drunken man to subsequent consequences was rather quaintly shown by that weird individual Dr. Tanner, when he went up to Sir Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in the lobby of the House of Commons, and abruptly observed:—
'You're a fool.'
Sir Ellis fixed him with his eyeglass, and, in disgusted tones, replied:—
'You're drunk.'
'I suppose so,' retorted the Irishman, 'but then I'll be sober to-morrow'—in the most plaintive tone, then in a crescendo of scorn—' whereas you'll always be a fool.'
Moreover as he slouched down the lobby, he was heard to say:—
'If I do get a headache, I've a head to have it in, not a frame on which to hang an eyeglass.'
That is a political amenity on which I will not dwell.
Very little money-lending is to be heard of in the south of Ireland, and in all my experience I only remember one case in Kerry. Tenants in Ireland, however, have great horror of breaking bulk, and many of them will do a bill for a neighbour when they have deposits in the bank for themselves. As it is a point of honour never to refuse a friend in this respect, you can easily imagine the amount of 'paper' which is fluttering.