"I was going," said an Irishman, "over Westminster Bridge the other day, and I met Pat Hewins—'Hewins,' says I, 'how are you?'—'Pretty well,' says he, 'thank you, Donnelly.'—'Donnelly,' says I, 'that's not my name.'— 'Faith, no more is mine Hewins,' says he. So we looked at each other again, and sure it turned out to be neither of us—and where's the bull of that now?"
BAD HABIT.
Sir Frederick Flood had a droll habit of which he could never effectually break himself (at least in Ireland.) Whenever a person at his back whispered or suggested any thing to him whilst he was speaking in public, without a moment's reflection, he always repeated the suggestion literatim. Sir Frederick was once making a long speech in the Irish Parliament, lauding the transcendent merits of the Wexford magistracy, on a motion for extending the criminal jurisdiction in that county, to keep down the disaffected. As he was closing a most turgid oration by declaring "that the said magistracy ought to receive some signal mark of the Lord Lieutenant's favour,"—John Egan, who was rather mellow, and sitting behind him, jocularly whispered, "and be whipped at the cart's tail."— "And be whipped at the cart's tail!" repeated Sir Frederick unconsciously, amidst peals of uncontrollable laughter.
CURIOUS POST OFFICE
.
It is said, as the Isle of Ascension is visited by the homeward-bound ships on account of its sea fowls, fish, turtle, and goats, there is in a crevice of the rock a place called the "Post Office," where letters are deposited, shut up in a well-corked bottle, for the ships that next visit the island. [22]
P.T.W.