"A friend of mine, traveling in Ireland, stopped for a drink of milk at a white cottage with a thatched roof, and, as he sipped his refreshment, he noted, on a center table under a glass dome, a brick with a faded rose upon the top of it.
"'Why do you cherish in this way,' my friend said to his host, 'that common brick and that dead rose?'
"'Shure, sir,' was the reply, 'there's certain memories attachin' to them. Do ye see this big dent in my head? Well, it was made by that brick.'
"'But the rose?' said my friend.
His host smiled quietly. "'The rose,' he explained, 'is off the grave of the man that threw the brick.'"
