y, Captain O'Malley," said Giles, "I find I can't be as good as my
word with you; my servant has moved to the rear with all my traps."

"What is to be done?" said I.

"Is it shaving utensils you want?" said Maurice. "Would a scalpel serve
your turn?"

"No, Doctor, I'm going to take a turn of duty with your fellows to-night."

"In the breach, with the stormers?"

"With the forlorn hope," said O'Shaughnessy. "Beauclerc is so badly wounded
that we've sent him back; and Charley, like a good fellow, has taken his
place."

"Martin told me," said Maurice, "that Beauclerc was only stunned; but,
upon my conscience, the hospital-mates, now-a-days, are no better than the
watchmakers; they can't tell what's wrong with the instrument till they
pick it to pieces. Whiz! there goes a blue light."

"Move on, move on," whispered O'Shaughnessy; "they're telling off the
stormers. That rocket is the order to fall in."

"But what am I to do for a coat?"

"Take mine, my boy," said Maurice, throwing off an upper garment of coarse
gray frieze as he spoke.

"There's a neat bit of uniform," continued he, turning himself round for
our admiration; "don't I look mighty like the pictures of George the First
at the battle of Dettingen!"

A burst of approving laughter was our only answer to this speech, while
Maurice proceeded to denude himself of his most extraordinary garment.

"What, in the name of Heaven, is it?" said I.

"Don't despise it, Charley; it knows the smell of gunpowder as well as any
bit of scarlet in the service;" while he added, in a whisper, "it's the
ould Roscommon Yeomanry. My uncle commanded them in the year '42, and this
was his coat. I don't mean to say that it was new then; for you see it's a
kind of heirloom in the Quill family, and it's not every one I'd be giving
it to."

"A thousand thanks, Maurice," said I, as I buttoned it on, amidst an
ill-suppressed titter of laughter.

"It fits you like a sentry-box," said Maurice, as he surveyed me with a
lantern. "The skirts separate behind in the most picturesque manner; and
when you button the collar, it will keep your head up so high that the
devil a bit you'll see except the blessed moon. It's a thousand pities you
haven't the three-cocked hat with the feather trimming. If you wouldn't
frighten the French, my name's not Maurice. Turn about here till I admire
you. If you only saw yourself in a glass, you'd never join the dragoons
again. And look now, don't be exp