第56章

We have a Protestant clergyman who is travelling for his health, but beguiling his time by observations for a volume to be called The Relation between Priests and Pauperism. It seems, at first thought, as if the circular coupon system were ill fitted to furnish him with corroborative detail; but inasmuch as every traveller finds in a country only, so to speak, what he brings to it, he will gather statistics enough. Those persons who start with a certain bias of mind in one direction seldom notice any facts that would throw out of joint those previously amassed; they instinctively collect the ones that 'match,' all others having a tendency to disturb the harmony of the original scheme. The clergyman's travelling companion is a person who possesses not a single opinion, conviction, or trait in common with him; so we conclude that they joined forces for economy's sake. This comrade we call 'the man with the evergreen heart,' for we can hardly tell by his appearance whether he is an old young man or a young old one. With his hat on he is juvenile; when he removes it, he is so distinctly elderly that we do not know whether to regard him as damaged youth or well- preserved old age; but he transfers his solicitous attentions to lady after lady, rebuffs not having the slightest effect upon his warm, susceptible, ardent nature. We suppose that he is single, but we know that he can be married at a moment's notice by anybody who is willing to accept the risks of the situation. Then we have a nice schoolmaster, so agreeable that Salemina, Francesca, and I draw lots every evening as to who shall sit beside him next day. He has just had seventy boys down with measles at the same time, giving prizes to those who could show the best rash! Salemina is no friend to the competitive system in education, but this appealed to her as being as wise as it was whimsical.

We have also in our company an indiscreet and inflammable Irishman from Wexford and a cutler from Birmingham, who lose no opportunity to have a conversational scrimmage. When the car stops to change or water the horses (and as for this last operation, our steeds might always manage it without loss of time by keeping their mouths open), we generally hear something like this; for although the two gentlemen have never met before, they fight as if they had known each other all their lives.

Mr. Shamrock. "Faith, then, if you don't like the hotels and the railroads, go to Paris or London; we've done widout you up to now, and we can kape on doing widout you! We'd have more money to spind in entertainin' you if the government hadn't taken three million of pounds out of us to build fortifications in China."

Mr. Rose. "That's all bosh and nonsense; you wouldn't know how to manage an hotel if you had the money."

Mr. Shamrock. "If we can't make hotel-kapers, it's soldiers we can make; and be the same token you can't manage India or Canada widout our help! Faith, England owes Ireland more than she can pay, and it's not her business to be thravelin' round criticisin' the throubles she's helped to projuce."

Mr. Rose. "William Ewart Gladstone did enough for your island to make up for all the harm that the other statesmen may or may not have done."

Mr. Shamrock, touched in his most vulnerable point, shrieks above the rattle of the wheels: "The wurrst statesman that iver put his name to paper was William Ewart Gladstone!"

Mr. Rose. "The best, I say!"

Mr. Shamrock. "I say the wurrst!"

Mr. Rose. "The best!!"

Mr. Shamrock. "The wurrst!!"

Mr. Rose (after a pause). "It's your absentee landlords that have done the mischief. I'd hang every one of them, if I had my way."

Mr. Shamrock. "Faith, they'd be absent thin, sure enough!"

And at this everybody laughs, and the trouble is over for a brief space, much to the relief of Mrs. Shamrock, until her husband finds himself, after a little, sufficiently calm to repeat a Cockney anecdote, which is received by Mr. Rose in resentful silence, it being merely a description of the common bat, an unfortunate animal that, according to Mr. Shamrock, "'as no 'ole to 'ide in, no 'ands to 'old by, no 'orns to 'urt with, though Nature 'as given 'im 'ooks be'ind to 'itch 'imself up by."