Trollope used variations of this theme in several of his novels. George Roden, in _Marion Fay_, is found to be the eldest son of an Italian duke. _Is He Popenjoy?_ is all about whether an unprincipled English Marquis, living in Italy, was legitimately married to an Italian duchessa and whether their son was Lord Popenjoy. Esther Summerson, in Charles Dickens's _Bleak House_, does not know who her real mother is until late in the story. Oscar Wilde's _The Importance of Being Earnest_ revolves about two babies in large handbags who were unwittingly swapped at a railway station. When this is announced in the last act, Jack throws himself on Miss Prism with a cry of "Mother!" One actual case involved the "Tichbourne claimant," who in 1875 returned from Australia and claimed to be the rightful heir to a family fortune; the courts ruled against him. Surely this story itself could provide material for a doctoral dissertation; lacking such research, however, one would suppose that such events occurred infrequently and stirred imaginations each time, prompting fictional and comic variations on the theme. Among the insights into Irish life are the sketches of Protestant and Catholics, preachers and priests. We find Father Bernard being petted by his sister-in-law and niece at Mick O'Dwyer's public house, where the women offer him another cup of tea, a hot muffin, or "a morsel of buttered toast" if he will only say the word. Protestants and Catholics are obliged to work together in public assistance efforts to aid famine victims, but when it is suggested to the Protestant parson that Father Barney may be right in a certain matter, he categorically denies it. "He's altogether wrong. I never knew one of them right in my life yet in anything. How can they be right?" On the other hand, the Catholic bias appears when Father Columb is told that men will work anywhere to keep from starving. He only replies, "Some men will," implying that Protestants would work anywhere because of their devotion to the flesh, but that Roman Catholics are under the dominion of the Spirit and would perish first. The story moves toward its conclusion in London, where Herbert has gone to study law after leaving Castle Richmond. Here we see two lawyers at work. The first is Mr. Prendergast, the family attorney, who receives a letter revealing the family secret. Mr. Prendergast anticipates Sherlock Holmes in his powers of observation as he enters the house and searches for his quarry: "But the armchair was placed idly away from any accommodation for work, and had, as Mr. Prendergast thought, been recently filled by some idle person." We also encounter the barrister, Mr. Die, still working hard at age seventy. Men who retire at age sixty, the author tells us, are those who have always been idle. "It is my opinion that nothing seasons the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should perhaps be added."