A roast goose appeared on a Counsellor’s table with only one leg. His cook tried to cover up the what had really happened to the missing limb.
“-‘Bless my heart! why this goose has but one leg,’ exclaimed Counsellor Bethell, while carving the Michaelmas bird for a few choice friends; ‘call up the cook.’ Paddy Flinn, factotum general, and generally cook to the Counsellor, had been visited that day by his own sweet cousin german*, Judy Makirk, married a month, and of course in the way in which ‘Ladies wish to be who love their Lords.’ Now poor Paddy thought he saw Judy throw a longing eye on the dexter leg of the goose, so savoury and brown at the fire. Judy confessed her desires, and Paddy couldn’t resist the impulses of his good nature to gratify them; so off went the leg, and up went the dismembered goose. Paddy appeared to the call of ‘the quality,’ when the following curious dialogue took place :-Counsellor B.: ‘Ah! then, Paddy, where the devil’s the right leg of the goose?’ – Paddy : ‘Isn’t it sticking in your fork, your honour?’ – Counsellor B.: ‘My fork! I think that’s in the left leg, as the other appears to be gone away. Come, Sir, account for this impertinence.’ – Paddy : ‘O, Sir, that I can asy enough, your honour : a big Lawyer knows but little of geese. Why, Sir, devil a goose in Dublin has more than one leg at this minute, I’ll be bail, any how.’ – Counsellor B.: ‘What? – are you drunk, Sirrah; otr what do ye mean?’ – Paddy : ‘Och, be pleased to step out to the hen-house, and I’ll make your honour sensible in a minute.’ – Away they went, and Paddy pointed out the geese at roost; and, indeed, apparently with but one leg, as that bird generally tucks in the other while reposing. The Counsellor, who likes a joke, good humouredly exclaimed, ‘Pretty well, Paddy; but see how soon I’ll upset your logic by one word;’ and then clapping his hands, he cried, ‘Wshe!’ and the geese ‘to a man’ produced another leg. Paddy was still not at a perfect non plus; but scratching his head, he exclaimed with a leer, ‘Och, see that now! If your Honour had but the since to cry ‘Wshe!’ at dinner time, see how soon ye’d a seen the leg that wasn’t in it.'”
The Stamford Mercury, 31st October, 1823.
*i.e. a full or first cousin.