'When the war broke out first we were all praying that the English might be beaten out of South Africa. Then when Mr. Marshall went away to the army, we thought we should not like his side to lose, so we changed our prayers round by the blessing of God and His Saints.' If any real impression has been given in these pages of the inconsistent Irish character, the genuine character of this sentiment will be comprehensible. It has been said that an Irishman will tell the truth about everything except one thing--that, of course, is a horse. When not engaged in shooting his landlord, the tenant is by no means disaffected to him, whilst the female appurtenances, mindful of all the small doles they obtain, are much more voluble in their cordial protestations. Sometimes the women are enigmatical: one does not know if they are acting out of kindness or from duplicity. For example, not so long ago a girl came up to one of my daughters in the road and said to her:-- 'For the love of God tell your mother to order your father's coffin for he'll need it, the Saints preserve us.' And with that she started away before there was time to reply. Nothing came of it, of course: nothing ever has, of real importance. Nothing, alas, also seems so often to be the verdict on life when looking back. Mine, however, has been too full a one, not only with griefs and trials but also with happiness and fun, for me to dismiss it thus. There has been so much more to live through than to write about, and yet, in these pages, has been told something which would have gone for ever untold if I had not in old age become garrulous. Things forgotten have been recalled to my mind and may prove suggestive to other people who read them, and it is my hope, in concluding, that I have provided diversion and a little food for reflection. I feel that a critic may consider too much that has been set down here is disconnected, yet if he will let a gramophone record an animated conversation, he will find that it ebbs and flows with the uncertain babbling of a brook--and so it has been with me. Only the other day, in the preface to Camden's _History of the British Islands_, I came across the phrase:-- 'bookes receive their doome according to the reader's capacitie,' and that alone emboldens me to hope for some measure of success for the present volume. Readers do not always want serious subjects, and it is in an hour when they desire a little diversion that I hope my reminiscences may commend themselves, for in a phrase not unknown in my native Kerry, this book consists of 'little things, and that away.' THE END INDEX