The Indians had thus formed their notions of the beautiful city of Dublin by riding through it repeatedly in all its parts--by viewing, outside and in, its churches, its colleges, its gardens, and other places of amusement; and of its inhabitants, by meeting them in the exhibition rooms, and in their own houses, at their hospitable boards. They decided that Edinburgh was rather the most beautiful city; that in Glasgow they saw the most ragged and poor; and that in Dublin they met the warmest-hearted and most kind people of any they had seen in the kingdom. In Dublin, as in Glasgow, they had been in the habit of throwing handfuls of pence to the poor; and at length had got them baited, so that gangs of hungry, ragged creatures were daily following their carriage home to their door, and there waiting under their windows for the pence that were often showered down upon their heads. Out of the thousands of beggars that _I_ met while there (and many of whom extracted money from my pocket by their wit or drollery when I was not disposed to give it), there was but one of whom I shall make mention in this place. In my daily walk from my hotel to the Rotunda, there was an old, hardy-looking veteran, who used often to meet me and solicit with great importunity, as I had encouraged him by giving to him once or twice when I first met him. I was walking on that pavement one day with an American friend whom I had met, and, observing this old man coming at some distance ahead of us on the same pavement, I said to my friend, "Now watch the motions of that old fellow as he comes up to beg--look at the expression of his face." When we had got within a few rods of him the old man threw his stomach in, and one knee in an instant seemed out of joint, and his face! oh, most pitiable to look upon. We approached him arm-in-arm, and while coming towards him I put my hand in my pocket as if I was getting out some money, which brought this extraordinary expression from him: "My kind sir, may the gates of Heaven open to receive you!"--(by this time we had got by him, and, seeing that my hand remained stationary in my pocket, as he had turned round and was scowling daggers at me)--"and may you be kicked out the moment you get there!" There is an inveteracy in the Irish begging and wit that shows it to be native and not borrowed; it is therefore more irresistible and more successful than in any other country perhaps in the world. I speak this, however, merely as an opinion of my own, formed on the many instances where the very reasons I assigned for not giving were so ingeniously and suddenly turned into irresistible arguments for giving, that my hand was in my pocket before I was aware of it.