ould
leap from their sockets, in search of the reckless O'Flaherty. 'Where's
the adjutant, Sir?' he bellowed with a crimson scowl and a stamp, to the
unoffending sentry.

'That's the way to make him lie quiet, and keep his bed till he heals,
Sir.'

Puddock explained, and the storm subsided, rumbling off in half a dozen
testy assertions on the general's part that he, Puddock, had distinctly
used the word '_wounded_,' and now and then renewing faintly, in a
muttered explosion, on the troubles and worries of his command, and a
great many 'pshaws!' and several fits of coughing, for the general
continued out of breath for some time. He had showed his cards, however,
and so, in a dignified disconcerted sort of way, he told Puddock that he
had heard something about O'Flaherty's having got most improperly into a
foolish quarrel, and having met Nutter that afternoon, and for a moment
feared he might have been hurt; and then came enquiries about Nutter,
and there appeared to have been no one hurt, and yet the parties on the
ground--and no fighting--and yet no reconciliation--and, in fact, the
general was so puzzled with this conundrum, and so curious, that he was
very near calling after Puddock, when they parted at the bridge, and
making him entertain him, at some cost of consistency, with the whole
story.

So Puddock--his head full of delicious visions--marched homeward--to
powder and perfume, and otherwise equip for that banquet of the gods, of
which he was to partake at five o'clock, and just as he turned the
corner at 'The Phoenix,' who should he behold, sailing down the Dublin
road from the King's House, with a grand powdered footman, bearing his
cane of office, and a great bouquet behind her, and Gertrude
Chattesworth by her side, but the splendid and formidable Aunt Becky,
who had just been paying her compliments to old Mrs. Colonel Stafford,
from whom she had heard all about the duel. So as Puddock's fat cheeks
grew pink at sight of Miss Gertrude, all Aunt Becky's colour flushed
into her face, as her keen eye pierced the unconscious lieutenant from
afar off, and chin and nose high in air, her mouth just a little tucked
in, as it were, at one corner--a certain sign of coming storm--an angry
hectic in each cheek, a fierce flirt of her fan, and two or three short
sniffs that betokened mischief--she quickened her pace, leaving her
niece a good way in the rear, in her haste to engage the enemy. Before
she came up she comme