just burst out laughing; and then he will burst out laughing too,
and slave for you, and trot about after you, and show you good
sport if he can--for he is an affectionate fellow, and as fond of
sport as you are--and if he can't, tell you fibs instead, a hundred
an hour; and wonder all the while why poor ould Ireland does not
prosper like England and Scotland, and some other places, where
folk have taken up a ridiculous fancy that honesty is the best
policy.

Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable chiefly
(at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as they
have been all poached out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent
the Cythrawl Sassenach (which means you, my little dear, your kith
and kin, and signifies much the same as the Chinese Fan Quei) from
coming bothering into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, and
civilisation, and common honesty, and other like things of which
the Cymry stand in no need whatsoever?

Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among the
Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under the wise
new fishing-laws?--when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, as
they did three hundred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon more
than three days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plentiful
under Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-hole at Christchurch; in
the good time coming, when folks shall see that, of all Heaven's
gifts of food, the one to be protected most carefully is that
worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to go down to the
sea weighing five ounces, and to come back next year weighing five
pounds, without having cost the soil or the state one farthing?