“Sir, I have not given your proposition such consideration as would entitle me to say I concur with it or not.” “That's not it at all!” broke he in, with an insolent laugh; “but you won't allow that you 're a Cockney.” “I protest, sir,” said I, sternly; “I have yet to learn that I 'm bound to make a declaration of my birth, parentage, and education to the first stranger I sit beside in a coffee-room.” “No, you 're not,--nothing of the kind,--for it's done for you. It 's done in spite of you, when you open your mouth. Did n't you see the waiter running out of the room with the napkin in his mouth when you tried to say Donegal? Look here, Paul,” said he, drawing his chair confidentially towards my table. “We don't care a rush what you do with your H's, or your W's, either; but, if we can help it, we won't have our national names miscalled. We have a pride in them, and we 'll not suffer them to be mutilated or disfigured. Do you understand me now?” “Sufficiently, sir, to wish you a very good-night,” said I, rising from the table, and leaving my pint of sherry, of which I had only drunk one glass. As I closed the coffee-room door, I thought--indeed, I 'm certain--I heard a loud roar of laughter. “'Who is that most agreeable gentleman I sat next at dinner?” asked I of the waiter. “Counsellor MacNamara, sir. Isn't he a nice man?” “A charming person,” said I. “I wish you heard him in the coort, sir. By my conscience, a witness has a poor time under him! He 'd humbug you if you was an archbishop.” “Call me at five,” said I, passing up the stairs, and impatient to gain my room and be alone with my indignation. I passed a restless, feverish night, canvassing with myself whether I would not turn back and leave forever a country whose first aspect was so forbidding and unpromising. What stories had I not heard of Irish courtesy to strangers,--Irish wit and Irish pleasantry! Was this, then, a specimen of that captivating manner which makes these people the French of Great Britain? Why, this fellow was an unmitigated savage! Having registered a vow not to open my lips to a stranger till I reached the end of my journey, and to affect deafness rather than be led into conversation, I set off the next day, by train, for Derry. True to my resolve, I only uttered the word “beer” till I arrived in the evening. The next day I took the steamer to a small village called Cushnagorra, from whence it was only ten miles by a good mountain-road to Killyrotherum Bay. I engaged a car to take me on, and at last found myself able to ask a few questions without the penalty of being cross-examined by an impertinent barrister, and being made the jest of a coffee-room. I wanted to learn something about the people to whose house I was going, and asked Pat, accordingly, if he knew Mr. Dudgeon. “Troth I do, sir, well,” said he. “He's a good kind of man, I'm told,” said I. “He is, indeed, sir; no betther.” “Kind to the poor, and charitable?”