s to that old tune."

Amidst a hurried recognition, and shaking of hands on every side, I elbowed
my way into the tent, and soon reached a corner, where, at a table for
eight, I found Maurice seated at one end; a huge, purple-faced old major,
whom he presented to us as Bob Mahon, occupied the other. O'Shaughnessy
presided at the table next to us, but near enough to join in all the
conviviality of ours.

One must have lived for some months upon hard biscuit and harder beef
to relish as we did the fare before us, and to form an estimate of our
satisfaction. If the reader cannot fancy Van Amburgh's lions in red coats
and epaulettes, he must be content to lose the effect of the picture. A
turkey rarely fed more than two people, and few were abstemious enough to
be satisfied with one chicken. The order of the viands, too, observed no
common routine, each party being happy to get what he could, and satisfied
to follow up his pudding with fish, or his tart with a sausage. Sherry,
champagne, London porter, Malaga, and even, I believe, Harvey's sauce were
hobnobbed in; while hot punch, in teacups or tin vessels, was unsparingly
distributed on all sides. Achilles himself, they say, got tired of eating,
and though he consumed something like a prize ox to his own cheek, he at
length had to call for cheese, so that we at last gave in, and having
cleared away the broken tumbrels and baggage-carts of our army, cleared for
a general action.

"Now, lads!" cried the major, "I'm not going to lose your time and mine by
speaking; but there are a couple of toasts I must insist upon your drinking
with all the honors; and as I like despatch, we'll couple them. It so
happens that our old island boasts of two of the finest fellows that
ever wore Russia ducks. None of your nonsensical geniuses, like poets or
painters or anything like that; but downright, straightforward, no-humbug
sort of devil-may-care and bad-luck-to-you kind of chaps,--real Irishmen!
Now, it's a strange thing that they both had such an antipathy to vermin,
they spent their life in hunting them down and destroying them; and whether
they met toads at home or Johnny Crapaud abroad, it was all one. [Cheers.]
Just so, boys; they made them leave that; but I see you are impatient, so
I'll not delay you, but fill to the brim, and with the best cheer in your
body, drink with me the two greatest Irishmen that ever lived, 'Saint
Patrick and Lord Wellington.'"

The Englishmen laughed l