We were going out to visit Blarney Castle. Not that I felt any particular need of kissing the Blarney Stone myself, for I had managed to talk my way through life so far without so doing, and saw no reason to doubt my ability to do so in the future, providing the United Booking Offices would continue to book us. But of course when you go all the way from New Hampshire to Ireland you just sort of have to see all these things. And then, of course, it would sound kind of cute to say, "Oh, yes; I kissed the Blarney Stone." And I still think it would sound cute; only I am not saying it. For when I took one look at that dinky little piece of rock stuck in the side of a wall one hundred and twenty feet above terra firma, and looked at the hole I was supposed to hang down through to get at it, I said to myself—"Not guilty." So any Lady-Manager or Booking Agent can still converse with me with perfect safety. I have not kissed the Blarney Stone.

But that is not what I started in to tell. Of course I could have gone out there in our automobile; but that would be a fine way to visit Blarney Castle, wouldn't it? Yes, it wouldn't. When you are in Ireland do as the Romans do. So we put the auto in a garage (and over there that word does not have any of the French curlicues we put on it, with the last syllable accented. It is pronounced to rhyme with the word carriage) and embarked in a jaunting (or jolting) car.

Our driver was a regular lad; several years ago I wrote a monologue for Marshall P. Wilder, and during this trip this driver told me the whole monologue. And then he had some other encore stuff too.

We were passing an insane asylum and he said that the previous summer he had driven a doctor from Philadelphia out to this asylum; and while there a very funny thing had happened. As the doctor was passing along through one of the wards—Now the driver of an Irish jaunting car sits way up in front, right over the horse's tail, and the passengers sit back of him, facing off sideways; so the driver has to turn his head to talk to the passengers. Up to this point of his story this driver had been turned toward me, telling his story to me; but now he happened to think that it would be more polite to tell it to the ladies; so he turned around back to me and told the rest of it to them. I did not hear a word of it; but when the finish came, and the ladies laughed, I laughed, just to be polite.

And when the laughter had died down I said,

"That puts me in mind of a story I heard over in America. A man was passing an insane asylum and he noticed a clock up on one of the towers; but there was some half hour's difference between his watch and the clock; and while he was standing there trying to figure out which was right, one of the patients stuck his head out of a window right beside the clock. The man below saw him and called up to him,

"'Hey, there: is that clock right?'""And the patient replied,

'No; if it was it wouldn't be in here.'"

Honest, if I hadn't known I was in Cork, Ireland, I should have thought I was playing Toronto, Canada; there wasn't a ripple; the driver gave me one disgusted look, hit the horse a cut with the whip and drove on in silence. My wife looked at me angrily and shook her head.

"All right," I said to myself. "You are a Mutt audience and I shall relate no more episodes of a comic nature." And I didn't.

When we had reached our rooms that night my wife turned on me and said sharply,

"What did you do that for?"

"What did I do what for?"

"What did you tell him that story for?"

"Well, why in thunder shouldn't I tell it to him? What's the matter with that story anyway?"

She looked at me curiously for a moment, then said,

"Don't you know what you did?"

"No."

"Why that was the same story he had just told you."

E. J. Connelly has got a summer home at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. He also owns several building lots around there. As building lots without buildings on them do not bring in much cash, Edward was seriously contemplating building some cottages on the lots, furnishing and renting them. I met him one evening this fall and asked him how the cottages were coming on.

"It's all off," he said; "nothing doing in the cottage line for me."

I asked him what had happened to change his mind so suddenly.

"Well, Bill," he said, "you know I am not a chap who goes hunting for trouble; I'm nervous; I don't like to be troubled with other people's troubles. This afternoon I was over to Bob Eaton's, and you know he has got some cottages up at the other end of the lake that he rents, furnished."

"Yes, I knew that."

"Well," continued Connelly, "while I was over to Bob's this afternoon a man who has rented one of these cottages came down there. He had left his cottage and driven twelve miles down to Bob's house to make a kick; and what do you suppose the kick was?""Haven't the least idea."

"There wasn't any nutmeg grater in the cottage. Twelve miles to make a five-cent kick. And my cottages would be only two hundred feet away. No landlord business for your Uncle Edward. No, sir."