The starting of the daily 'Mail Express' from Ballyfuchsia is a time of great excitement and confusion, which on some occasions increases to positive panic. The stationmaster, armed with a large dinner-bell, stands on the platform, wearing an expression of anxiety ludicrously unsuited to the situation. The supreme moment had really arrived some time before, but he is waiting for Farmer Brodigan with his daughter Kathleen, and the Widdy Sullivan, and a few other local worthies who are a 'thrifle late on him.' Finally they come down the hill, and he paces up and down the station ringing the bell and uttering the warning cry, “This thrain never shtops! This thrain never shtops! This thrain never shtops!”--giving one the idea that eternity, instead of Killarney, must be the final destination of the passengers. The clock in the Ballyfuchsia telegraph and post office ceases to go for twenty-four hours at a time, and nobody heeds it, while the postman always has a few moments' leisure to lay down his knapsack of letters and pitch quoits with the Royal Irish Constabulary. However, punctuality is perhaps an individual virtue more than an exclusively national one. I am not sure that we Americans would not be more agreeable if we spent a month in Ireland every year, and perhaps Ireland would profit from a month in America. At the Brodigans' (Mr. Brodigan is a large farmer, and our nearest neighbour) all the clocks are from ten to twenty minutes fast or slow; and what a peaceful place it is! The family doesn't care when it has its dinner, and, mirabile dictu, the cook doesn't care either! “If you have no exact time to depend upon, how do you catch trains?” I asked Mr. Brodigan. “Sure that's not an everyday matter, and why be foostherin' over it? But we do, four times out o' five, ma'am!” “How do you like it that fifth time when you miss it?” “Sure it's no more throuble to you to miss it the wan time than to hurry five times! A clock is an overrated piece of furniture, to my mind, Mrs. Beresford, ma'am. A man can ate whin he's hungry, go to bed whin he's sleepy, and get up whin he's slept long enough; for faith and it's thim clocks he has inside of himself that don't need anny winding!” “What if you had a business appointment with a man in the town, and missed the train?” I persevered. “Trains is like misfortunes; they never come singly, ma'am. Wherever there's a station the trains do be dhroppin' in now and again, and what's the differ which of thim you take?” “The man who is waiting for you at the other end of the line may not agree with you,” I suggested.