CHAPTER V.
HOW THE ROYAL IRISH ARTILLERY ENTERTAINED SOME OF THE NEIGHBOURS AT DINNER.
If I stuck at a fib as little as some historians, I might easily tell you who won the prizes at this shooting on Palmerstown Green.

But the truth is, I don't know; my granduncle could have told me, for he had a marvellous memory, but he died, a pleasant old gentleman of four-score and upwards, when I was a small urchin.

I remember his lively old face, his powdered bald head and pigtail, his slight erect figure, and how merrily he used to play the fiddle for his juvenile posterity to dance to.

But I was not of an age to comprehend the value of this thin, living volume of old lore, or to question the oracle.

Well, it can't be helped now, and the papers I've got are silent upon the point.