There was unutterable sadness in his tone and gesture as he said, with a weary sigh:
“Ah! I have been tilting the cask so long that the lees are coming out very muddy.”
“Which of your novels do you like best?” was asked.
“Well, my most careful work is Sir Brook Fosbrooke, but I prefer the Dodd Family Abroad, and all for the sake of Carry Dodd, who is my ideal of a pure, bright, charming Irish girl.”
Further on:
“You are the same reckless, rollicking, warm-hearted, improvident people as when I left you, and the lower orders entertain the same hatred of Saxon supremacy. I was walking down College Green yesterday, and as I stood opposite the old Parliament House, a troop of dragoons, in all their panoply of glancing helmets, blood-red coats, and prancing steeds, trotted past. A ragged, tatterdemalion carman was feeding a horse only fit for the knacker’s yard, attached to an outside car, with a wisp of hay.
“‘What regiment is that?’ I asked, partly from curiosity, partly for the sake of a conversation.
“‘Sorra a know I know,’ was the gruff response.
“‘Where are they going to?’
“Without raising his head, and giving a vicious chuck to the hay: