"He is, indeed, a rale nice man. But God be with poor Father Tom wherever he is. Sure 't was he was kind to the poor." There was a deputation of young men waiting at my house. I have been pestered from deputations and speeches since the Land League. A shaggy giant stepped forward and said:-- "We have preshumed, your reverence, to call upon you to ascertain whether you'd be agreeable to our what I may call unanimous intinsion of asking the new cojutor to be prisident of the Gaelic association of Kilronan, called the 'Holy Terrors.'" I said I was agreeable to anything they wished: and Father Letheby became president of the "Holy Terrors." After dinner something put me into better humor. I suppose it was the mountain mutton, for there's nothing like it in Ireland,--mutton raised on limestone land, where the grass is as tender to the lips of the sheep, as the sheep to the lips of men. I thought I had an excellent opportunity of eliciting my curate's proficiency in his classics. With a certain amount of timidity, for you never know when you are treading on a volcano with these young men, I drew the subject around. I have a way of talking enigmatically, which never fails, however, to reveal my meaning. And after a few clever passes, I said, demurely, drawing out my faded and yellow translation, made nearly thirty years ago:-- "I was once interested in other things. Here is a little weak translation I once made of a piece of Greek poetry, with which you are quite familiar. Ah me! I had great notions at the time, ideas of corresponding with classical journals, and perhaps, sooner or later, of editing a classic myself. But _Cui bono?_ paralyzed everything. That fatal _Cui bono?_ that is the motto and watchword of every thinking and unthinking man in Ireland. However, now that you have come, perhaps--who knows? What do you think of this?" I read solemnly:-- "I have argued and asked in my sorrow What shall please me? what manner of life? At home am I burdened with cares that borrow Their color from a world of strife. The fields are burdened with toil, The seas are sown with the dead, With never a hand of a priest to assoil A soul that in sin hath fled. I have gold: I dread the danger by night; I have none: I repine and fret; I have children: they darken the pale sunlight; I have none: I'm in nature's debt. The young lack wisdom; the old lack life; I have brains; but I shake at the knees; Alas! who could covet a scene of strife? Give me peace in this life's surcease!" "What do you think of this? It is a loose translation from Posidippus." "It swings well," said Father Letheby. "But who was he?" "One of the gnomic, or sententious poets," I replied. "Greek or Latin?" he asked. Then I succumbed. "You never heard his name before?" I said. "Never," said he emphatically. I paused and reflected.