"It is," he replied, "'O Lord, give me a stiff upper lip.'"

"And what does that mean?"

"It means," he said, "that when they come to me some night and wake me
up, and say, 'Captain, we're going down,' that I won't make a fool o'
meself. Why, sur, we war in mid Atlantic, and I standin' on the bridge,
when the third mate comes up to me looking mortial bad. Says he,
'Captain, all's up with us.' Says I, 'Didn't you know when you joined
that a certain percentage go down every year?' 'Yes, sur,' says he; and
says I, 'Arn't you paid to go down?' 'Yes, sur,' says he; and says I,
'Then go down like a man, and be damned to you!"'




CONCERNING THE NEARNESS TOGETHER OF HEAVEN, EARTH, AND PURGATORY


In Ireland this world and the world we go to after death are not far
apart. I have heard of a ghost that was many years in a tree and many
years in the archway of a bridge, and my old Mayo woman says, "There is
a bush up at my own place, and the people do be saying that there are
two souls doing their penance under it. When the wind blows one way the
one has shelter, and when it blows from the north the other has the
shelter. It is twisted over with the way they be rooting under it for
shelter. I don't believe it, but there is many a one would not pass by
it at night." Indeed there are times when the worlds are so near
together that it seems as if our earthly chattels were no more than the