"I'll make my affidavit I never blundered, plase your honour, but just went to the merchant's, as you ordered, with the draught, signed with the name I swore not to utter till past twelve. I presents the draught and waits to be paid. • Are you Mr. O'Mooney's servant?' says one of the clerks after awhile. No, sir, not at all, sir,' said I, I'm sir John Bull's, at your sarvice.'-He puzzles and puzzles and asks me did I bring the draught, and was that your writing at the bottom of it. I still said it was my master's writing, sir John Bull's, and no other. They whispered from one up to t'other, and then said it was a forgery, as I overheard, and must go before the mayor. With that, while the master, who was called down to be examined as to his opinion, was putting on his glasses to spell it out, I gives. then, one and all, the slip, and whips out of the street door and home to give your honour notice, and have been breaking

my heart at the door this half hour to make you hear, and now you have it all."

"I am in a worse dilemma now than when between the horns of the bull," thought sir John-" I must now either tell my real name, avow myself an Irishman, and so lose my bet, or else go to jail.”

He preferred going to jail. He resolved to pretend to be dumb, and he charged Terence not to betray him. The officers of justice came to take him upsir John resigned himself to them, making signs that he could not speak. He was carried before a magistrate. The merchant had never scen Mr. Phelim O'Mooney, but could swear to his hand writing and signature, having many of his letters and draughts The draught in question was produced. Sir John Bull would neither acknowledge nor deny the signa ture, but in dumb show made signs of inno

him speak-he kept his finger on his lips. One of the bailiffs offered to open sir John's mouth, Sir John clenched his hand in token, that if they used violence he knew his remedy. To the magistrate he was all bows and respect—but the law, in spite of civility, must take it's course.

Terence M'Dermod beat his breast, and called upon all the saints in the irish calendar, when he saw the committal actually made out, and his dear master given overto the constables. Nothing but his own oath and his master's commanding eye, which was fixed upon him at this instant, could have made him forbear to utter, what he had never in his life been before to strongly tempted to tell-the truth.

Determined to win his wager, our hero suffered himself to be carried to a lock-uphouse and persisted in keeping silence till the clock struck twelve! Then the charm was broken, and he spoke. He began talking to himself, and singing as loud as

he possibly could. The next morning Terence, who was no longer bound by his oath to conceal Phelim's name, hastened to his master's correspondent in town, told the whole story, and O'Mooney was liberated. Having won his bet by his wit and steadiness, he had now the prudence to give up these adventuring schemes, to which he had so nearly become a dupe; he returned immediately to Ireland to his brother, and determined to settle quietly to business. His good brother paid him the hundred guineas most joyfully, declaring that he had never spent a hundred guineas better in his life, than in recovering a brother. Phelim had now conquered his foolish dislike to trade; his brother took him into partnership, and Phelim O'Mooney never relapsed into sir John Bull.

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CONCLUSION.

UNABLE any longer to support the tone of irony, we joyfully speak in our own characters, and explicitly declare our opinion, that the Irish are an ingenious generous people; that the bulls and blunders, of which they are accused, are often imputable to their neighbours, or that they are justifiable by ancient precedents, or that they are produced by their habits of using figurative and witty language. By what their good humour is produced we know not; but that it exists, we are certain. In Ireland, the countenance and heart expand at the approach of wit and humour; the poorest labourer forgets his poverty and toil in the pleasure of enjoying a joke. Amongst all classes of the people, provided no malice is obviously mcant, none is apprehended. That such is the character of the majority of the nation,