At home, you know, I talk with ease, and am never shy--never weighed down and oppressed by that miserable _mauvaise honte_ which torments and constrains me elsewhere.

So I conversed with this Irishman, and laughed at his jests; and, though I saw faults in his character, excused them because of the amusement his originality afforded.

I cooled a little, indeed, and drew in towards the latter part of the evening, because he began to season his conversation with something of Hibernian flattery, which I did not quite relish.

However, they went away, and no more was thought about them.

A few days after, I got a letter, the direction of which puzzled me, it being in a hand I was not accustomed to see.