fun for
home consumption, and never exported even its surplus produce.

'It was better in every respect,' responded the Major. 'Hadn't we all
the patronage amongst us? There's Jonah, there--Harrington, I mean;
well, he and I could make anything, from a tide-waiter to a master in
Chancery. It's little trouble small debts gave us then; a pipe of sherry
never cost me more than a storekeeper in the ordnance, and I kept my
horses at livery for three years with a washwoman to Kilmainham Hospital
And as for fun--look at the Castle now! Don't I remember the times when
we used to rob the coaches coming from the drawing-rooms; and pretty
girls they were inside of them.'

'For shame, for shame!' cried Father Tom, with a sly look in the corner
of his eye that by no means bespoke a suitable degree of horror at such
unwarrantable proceedings.

'Well, if it was a shame it was no sin,' responded the Major; 'for we
never took anything more costly than kisses. Ah, dear me! them was the
times! And, to be sure, every now and then we got a pull-up from the
Lady lieutenant, and were obliged to behave ourselves for a week or two
together. One thing she never could endure was a habit we had of leaving
the Castle before they themselves left the ball-room. I'm not going to
defend it--it was not very polite, I confess; but somehow or other there
was always something going on we couldn't afford to lose--maybe a
supper at the barrack, or a snug party at Daly's, or a bit of fun
elsewhere. Her Excellency, however, got angry about it, and we got a
quiet hint to reform our manners. This, I need not tell you, was a
hopeless course; so we hit on an expedient that answered to the full as
well. It was by our names being called out, as the carriages drove up,
that our delinquency became known. So Matt Fortescue suggested that we
should adopt some feigned nomenclature, which would totally defy every
attempt at discovery; the idea was excellent, and we traded on it for
many a day with complete success. One night, however, from some cause or
other, the carriages were late in arriving, and we were all obliged to
accompany the court into the supper-room. Angry enough we were; but
still there was no help for it; and so, "smiling through tears," as the
poet says, in we went. Scarcely, however, had we taken our places when a
servant called out something from the head of the stairs; another
re-echoed it at the ante-chamber, and a third at the supper-room shouted