ubling you
about such things, when I know you are thinking of other matters. And, as
I said before, the money does not signify to me; the times, thank God, are
good, and I've never been very improvident."

"I think you'll find that correct."

"Oh, to be sure it is! Well, well; I'm going away without saying half what
I intended."

"Pray do not hurry yourself. I have not asked have you breakfasted, for I
remember Galway habits too well for that. But if I might offer you a glass
of sherry and water after your ride?"

"Will you think me a beast if I say yes, Captain? Time was when I didn't
care for a canter of ten or fifteen miles in the morning no more than
yourself; and that's no small boast; God forgive me, but I never see that
clover-field where you pounded the Englishman, without swearing there never
was a leap made before or since. Is this Mickey, Captain? Faith, and it's
a fine, brown, hearty-looking chap you're grown, Mickey. That's mighty
pleasant sherry, but where would there be good wine if it wasn't here? Oh,
I remember now what it was I wanted. Peter,--my son Peter, a slip of a boy,
he's only sixteen,--well, d'you see, he's downright deranged about the
army: he used to see your name in the papers every day, and that terrible
business at--what's the name of the place?--where you rode on the chap's
back up the breach."

"Ciudad Rodrigo, perhaps," said I, scarcely able to repress a laugh.

"Well, sir, since that he'll hear of nothing but going into the army; ay,
and into the dragoons too. Now, Captain, isn't it mighty expensive in the
dragoons?"

"Why, no, not particularly so,--at least in the regiment I served with."

"I promised him I'd ask you; the boy's mad, that's the fact. I wish,
Captain, you'd just reason with him a little; he'll mind what you say,
there's no fear of that. And you see, though I'd like to do what's fair,
I'm not going to cut off the girls for the sake of the boys; with the
blessing of Providence, they'll never be able to reproach me for that. What
I say is this: treat _me_ well, and I'll treat you the same. Marry the man
my choice would pick out for you, and it's not a matter of a thousand or
two I'll care for. There was Bodkin--you remember him?" said he, with a
grin; "he proposed for Mary, but since the quarrel with you, she could
never bear the sight of him, and Alley wouldn't come down to dinner if he
was in the house. Mary's greatly altered; I wish you heard her sing 'I'd
mour