ng I don't find means to
obtain, somehow or other."

"No," said I, resolutely, "I will never join the service of a country
which has inflicted such foul wrong on my native land."

"All stuff and nonsense!" cried Bubbleton. "Who cares the deuce of clubs
about politics? When you 're my age, you 'll find that if you 're not
making something of politics, they 'll make very little of you. I 'd as
soon sell figs for my grocer or snuff for my tobacconist as I 'd bother
my head governing the kingdom for Billy Pitt. He 's paid for it,--that's
his business, not mine. No, no, my boy; join us,--you shall be 'Burke
of Ours!' We 'll have a glorious campaign among the Yankees. I 'll teach
you the Seneca language, and we 'll have a ramble through the Indian
settlements. Meanwhile you dine to-day at the mess; to-morrow we picnic
at the Dargle; next day we--What the deuce is next day to be? Oh yes!
next day we all dine with you. Nothing stiff or formal,--a snug, quiet
thing for sixteen; I'll manage it all."

Here was an argument there was no resisting; so I complied at once,
comforting myself with a silent vow, come what might, I 'd leave Ireland
the day after my dinner party.

Under whatever guise--with what history of my rank, wealth, and family
influence--Bubbleton thought proper to present me to his brother
officers, I cannot say; but nothing could possibly be more kind, or
even more cordial, than their reception of me. And although I had some
difficulty in replying to questions put under mistaken notions of my
position and intentions, I readily followed, as far as I was able,
the line suggested by my imaginative friend, whose representations,
I suspected, would be received with a suitable limitation by his old
associates.

There is, perhaps, no species of society so striking and so captivating
to the young man entering on life as that of a military mess. The easy,
well-bred intimacy, that never degenerates into undue familiarity;
the good-humored, playful raillery, that never verges on coarseness
or severity; the happy blending of old men's wisdom and young men's
buoyancy,--are all very attractive features of social intercourse, even
independently of the stronger interest that invests the companionship of
men whose career is arms. I felt this, and enjoyed it too; not the
less pleasantly that I discovered no evidence of that violent partisan
feeling I had been led to believe was the distinguishing mark of the
Royalist soldier.