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!"