One day when driving in the outlets of Dublin, they came to a long and steep hill. Cabby got down, and walking alongside the cab, looked significantly in at the windows. ‘His honour’ knew very well what he meant; but the day was hot, and he was lazy and fat, and had no notion of taking the hint and getting out to ease the horse while ‘larding the lean earth’ himself. At last Paddy changed his tactics. Making a rush at the cab, he suddenly opened the door, and then slammed it to with a tremendous bang. ‘What’s that for?’ roared Mr F——, startled at the man’s violence and the loud report. ‘Whist, yer honour! Don’t say a word!’ whispered Paddy, putting his finger on his lips. ‘But what do you mean, sirrah?’ cried the fare. ‘Arrah, can’t ye hush, sir? Spake low now—do. Sure, ’tis letting on I am to the little mare that your honour’s got out to walk. Don’t let her hear you, and the craythur ’ll have more heart to face the hill if she thinks you’re not inside, and that ’tis only the cab that’s throubling her.’ * * * * * Baron R——, one of the gravest and most decorous judges on the bench, had a younger brother singularly unlike him, who was a perpetual thorn in his side. A scapegrace at school, the youth would learn nothing, and was the torment of his teachers. Having been set a sum by one of the latter, he, after an undue delay, presented himself before the desk and held up his slate, at one corner of which appeared a pile of coppers. ‘What is the meaning of all this, sir?’ said the master. ‘Oh!’ cried the youth, ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but I really can’t help it. All the morning I’ve been working at that sum. Over and over again I’ve tried, but in spite of all I can do, it will not come right. So I’ve made up the difference in halfpence, and there it is on the slate.’ The originality of the device disarmed the wrath of the pedagogue, and young R—— was dismissed with his coppers to his place. The youngster when grown up boasted an enormous pair of whiskers, of which he was very proud. One day a friend met him walking up Dame Street with one of these cherished bushy adornments shaved clean off, giving a most comical lop-sided appearance to his physiognomy. ‘Hollo, R——!’ he exclaimed, ‘what has become of your whisker?’ ‘Lost it at play,’ he replied. ‘Regularly cleaned out last night at the gaming-table of every mortal thing I had—nothing left to wager but my whisker.’ ‘And why, man, don’t you cut off the rest, and not have one side of your face laughing at the other?’ ‘I’m keeping that for to-night,’ said the scamp with a wink, as he passed on. * * * * * The father of the Lord Chancellor—afterwards Lord Plunket—was a very simple-minded man. Kindly and unsuspicious, he was often imposed upon, and the Chancellor used to tell endless stories illustrative of his parent’s guileless nature.