Lord Kilgobbin by Charles James Lever
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page 36 of 791 (04%)
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Portrait of Joe Atlee, _ætatis_ four years, with a villainous squint, and
something that looks like a plug in the left jaw. A Skye terrier, painted, it is supposed, by himself; not to recite unframed prints of various celebrities of the ballet, in accustomed attitudes, with the Reverend Paul Bloxham blessing some children--though from the gesture and the expression of the juveniles it might seem cuffing them--on the inauguration of the Sunday school at Kilmurry Macmacmahon. 'Lot three, interesting to anatomical lecturers and others, especially those engaged in palæontology. The articulated skeleton of an Irish giant, representing a man who must have stood in his no-stockings eight feet four inches. This, I may add, will be warranted as authentic, in so far that I made him myself out of at least eighteen or twenty big specimens, with a few slight "divergencies" I may call them, such as putting in eight more dorsal vertebrae than the regulation, and that the right femur is two inches longer than the left. The inferior maxillary, too, was stolen from a "Pithacus Satyrus" in the Cork Museum by an old friend, since transported for Fenianism. These blemishes apart, he is an admirable giant, and fully as ornamental and useful as the species generally. 'As to my wardrobe, it is less costly than curious; an alpaca paletot of a neutral tint, which I have much affected of late, having indisposed me to other wear. For dinner and evening duty I usually wear Kearney's, though too tight across the chest, and short in the sleeves. These, with a silver watch which no pawnbroker--and I have tried eight--will ever advance more on than seven-and-six. I once got the figure up to nine shillings by supplementing an umbrella, which was Dick's, and which still remains, "unclaimed and unredeemed." 'Two o'clock, by all that is supperless! evidently Kearney is enjoying |
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