But do not suppose they will bubble over
with joke and repartee, with racy anecdote, to every casual
newcomer. The tourist who looks upon the Irishman as the merry-
andrew of the English-speaking world, and who expects every jarvey
he meets to be as whimsical as Mickey Free, will be disappointed. I
have strong suspicions that ragged, jovial Mickey Free himself,
delicious as he is, was created by Lever to satisfy the Anglo-Saxon
idea of the low-comedy Irishman. You will live in the Emerald Isle
for many a month, and not meet the clown or the villain so familiar
to you in modern Irish plays. Dramatists have made a stage Irishman
to suit themselves, and the public and the gallery are disappointed
if anything more reasonable is substituted for him. You will find,
too, that you do not easily gain Paddy's confidence. Misled by his
careless, reckless impetuosity of demeanour, you might expect to be
the confidant of his joys and sorrows, his hopes and expectations,
his faiths and beliefs, his aspirations, fears, longings, at the
first interview. Not at all; you will sooner be admitted to a
glimpse of the travelling Scotsman's or the Englishman's inner life,
family history, personal ambition. Glacial enough at first and far
less voluble, he melts soon enough, if he likes you. Meantime, your
impulsive Irish friend gives himself as freely at the first
interview as at the twentieth; and you know him as well at the end
of a week as you are likely to at the end of a year.
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