They promised to relinquish their project, and as a token of their sincerity, sent us their ladders. I believe they repented of having given us any trouble, and they implicitly kept their promise. One of them is now a colonel in the army, and the other is _a magistrate of police_. Mr. Porter, let me request you to have more fruit and another glass of wine." I admired the kind and forgiving sentiments of the Superioress, and felt very grateful for her courteous hospitality, but I had no idle curiosity to know the names of the two ladder lads to whom her observations referred. CHAPTER XIV. TERRY DRISCOLL'S FICTION--BRIDGET LAFFAN--SAILORS--FISHER. I shall now revert to magisterial reminiscences, and notice an anecdote originally published in the _Warder_ newspaper, as a portion of a letter signed "Terry Driscoll," which was the _nom de plume_ of a well-known facetious and imaginative contributor named Jackson. It purports to be a report of observations addressed by me to a female who was repeatedly charged with being "drunk and disorderly." It states that Mr. Porter said to the delinquent that her frequent intoxication was always accompanied with indecent language and personal violence, so as to render her a public nuisance and a plague to the police. He then adjudged her, in default of solvent security for her good behaviour, to be committed for one calendar month, which time should be sufficient to bring her to a proper state of reflection on the past, and a disposition to reform her habits, and to curse Whiskey. To this she is represented to have replied, "That she had no fault to find with Whiskey, nor would she ever curse it, but from the bottom of her heart she could wish _bad lack to Porter_." To this anecdote several English periodicals have afforded extensive publicity, and I have merely to say that it is altogether a fiction. BRIDGET LAFFAN. There is, I believe, still living in Dublin, a woman named Bridget Laffan. I would readily wager that since 1841 she has been the subject of more than two thousand committals, in which drunkenness, violence, abusive language, indecent expressions or behaviour, and occasional mendicancy, constituted the offences. Shortly before I retired, she was brought before me charged with intoxication, and with three distinct assaults; one being on a constable in the execution of his duty. I told her, the cases having been fully proved, that on each of the assaults she should go to prison, with hard labor, for two months, which would relieve the public and the police for the next half year from one who had become an intolerable pest and disgrace to the community. When I directed her to be removed, she exclaimed that "she had not been allowed to say a word for herself." I then said that she was at liberty to speak, if it occurred to her that there was any favorable circumstances in her case either as a defence or mitigation. Her reply was short and peculiarly argumentative.