ne whose
contiguity to the dinner-room I could guess at from the loud sound of
many voices. "Wait one moment here," said my companion, "until I speak
to his Grace." He disappeared as he spoke, but before a minute had
elapsed he was again beside me. "Come this way; it's all right," said
he. The next moment I found myself in the dinner-room.

The scene before me was altogether so different from what I had
expected, that for a moment or two I could scarce do aught else than
stand still to survey it. At a table which had been laid for about forty
persons, scarcely more than a dozen were now present. Collected together
at one end of the board, the whole party were roaring with laughter at
some story of a strange, melancholy-looking man, whose whining
voice added indescribable ridicule to the drollery of his narrative.
Grey-headed general officers, grave-looking divines, lynx-eyed lawyers,
had all given way under the irresistible impulse, and the very table
shook with laughter.

"Mr. Hinton, your Excellency," said O'Grady for the third time, while
the Duke wiped his eye with his napkin, and, pushing his chair a little
back from the table, motioned me to approach.

"Ah, Hinton, glad to see you; how is your father?--a very old friend of
mine, indeed; and Lady Charlotte--well, I hope? O'Grady tells me
you've had an accident--something slight, I trust. So these are the
despatches." Here he broke the seal of the envelope, and ran his eye
over the contents. "There, that's your concern." So saying, he pitched
a letter across the table to a shrewd-looking personage in a horse-shoe
wig. "They won't do it, Dean, and we must wait. Ah!--so they don't like
my new commissioners; but, Hinton, my boy, sit down. O'Grady, have you
room there? A glass of wine with you."

"Nothing the worse of your mishap, sir?" said the melancholy-looking man
who sat opposite to me.

I replied by briefly relating my accident.

"Strange enough," said he, in a compassionate tone, "your head should
have suffered; your countrymen generally fall upon their legs in
Ireland." This was said with a sly look at the Viceroy, who, deep in his
despatches, paid no attention to the allusion.

"A very singular thing, I must confess," said the Duke, laying down the
paper. "This is the fourth time the bearer of despatches has met with an
accident. If they don't run foul of a rock in the Channel, they are sure
to have a delay on the pier."

"It is so natural, my Lord,"