Then I said, 'Supper will not be ready
for ten minutes, your Excellency'--though God forgive me if every
bit of it was not on the table that minute. 'Would you kindly see
if the sleeping accommodation is commodious enough, for we'll
alter it if it isn't?' and so I get them all out of that, and I
kept talking of this, and of that, the Lord only knows what, till
Mr. Murphy comes up and says, 'Supper is ready, your Excellency,'
giving me a look out of the tail of his eye as much as to say,
'Glory be! We have them drunk waiters safely out of that.'"
Of course I knew nothing of the convivial waiters, but I retain
vivid recollections of the splendours of the supper-table, and of
the "swatemates," for I managed to purloin a whole pocketful of
preserved ginger and other good things from it, without being
noticed.
We arrived at Kingstown in the early morning, and anchored in the
harbour, but, by a polite fiction, the Munster was supposed to be
absolutely invisible to ordinary eyes, for the new Lord-
Lieutenant's official time of arrival from England was 11 a.
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