r my discovery, or at
the opinion itself, I can't say--was the sole reply of my friend; who,
at the same moment, presuming I had sufficient opportunities for
the judgment I pronounced, replaced the decanters upon the tray, and
disappeared with the whole in the most grave and solemn manner.

Repressing a very great inclination to laughter, I sat still; and a
silence of a few moments ensued, when Mr. Delany walked towards the
window, and, drawing aside the curtains, looked out. All was in darkness
save on the opposite side of the court-yard, where a blaze of light fell
upon the pavement from over the half shutters of an apparently spacious
apartment. "Ay, ay, there you go; hip, hip, hurrah! you waste more
liquor every night than would float a lighter; that's all you're good
for. Bad luck to your Grace--making fun of the people, laughing and
singing as if the potatoes wasn't two shillings a stone."

"What's going on there?" said I.

"The ould work, nather more nor less. The Lord-Liftinnant, and the
bishops, and the jidges, and all the privy councillors roaring drunk.
Listen to them. May I never, if it isn't the Dean's voice I hear--the
ould beast; he is singing 'The Night before Larry was stretched.'"

"That's a good fellow, Corny--Mr. Delany I mean--do open the window for
a little, and let's hear them."

"It's a blessed night you'd have the window open to listen to a set of
drunken devils: but here's Master Phil; I know his step well It's long
before his father that's gone would come tearing up the stairs that way
as if the bailiffs was after him; rack and ruin, sorrow else, av I never
got a place--the haythins! the Turks!"

Mr. Delany, who, probably from motives of delicacy, wished to spare his
master the pain of an interview, made his exit by one door as he came in
at the other. I had barely time to see that the person before me was in
every respect the very opposite of his follower, when he called out in a
rich, mellow voice,

"All right again, I hope, Mr. Hinton; it's the first moment I could get
away; we had a dinner of the Privy Council, and some of them are rather
late sitters; you're not hurt, I trust?"

"A little bruised or so, nothing more; but pray, how did I fall into
such kind hands?"

"Oh! the watchmen, it seems, could read, and, as your trunks were
addressed to the Castle, they concluded you ought to go there also. You
have despatches, haven't you?"

"Yes," said I, producing the packet; "when mu