ricities of my
venerable aunt, all the peculiarities of Father Donellan, were dished
up by me for their amusement, and they never got tired laughing at the
description of the whist-table. Besides, I was able to afford them much
valuable information about the neighbouring gentry, all of whom I knew,
either personally, or by name. I was at once, therefore, employed as
a kind of diplomatic envoy to ascertain if Mr. Blennerhassett wouldn't
like a hogshead of brandy, or the Knight of Glynn a pipe of claret,
in addition to many minor embassies among the shebeen houses of the
country, concerning nigger-heads of tobacco, packages of tea, smuggled
lace, and silk handkerchiefs.

"Thus was my education begun; and an apter scholar, in all the art and
mystery of smuggling, could scarcely have been found. I had a taste for
picking up languages; and, before my first cruise was over, had got
a very tolerable smattering of French, Dutch, and Norwegian, and some
intimacy with the fashionable dialect used on the banks of the Niger.
Other accomplishments followed these. I was a capital pistol-shot--no
bad hand with the small swords--could reef and steer, and had not my
equal on board in detecting a revenue officer, no matter how artfully
disguised. Such were my professional--my social qualifications far
exceeded these. I could play a little on the violin, and the guitar,
and was able to throw into rude verse any striking incident of our wild
career, and adapt an air to it, for the amusement of my companions.
These I usually noted down in a book, accompanying them with pen
illustrations and notes; and I assure you, however little literary
reputation this volume might have acquired, 'O'Kelly's Log,' as it was
called, formed the great delight, of 'Saturday night at sea.' These
things were all too local and personal in their interest to amuse any
one who didn't know the parties; but mayhap one day or other I'll give
you a sight of the 'log,' and let you hear some of our songs.

"I won't stop to detail any of the adventures of my sea-faring life;
strange and wild enough they were in all conscience: one night,
staggering under close-reefed canvas beneath a lee-shore; another,
carousing with a jolly set in a 'Schenk Hans' at Rotterdam, or
Ostende--now, hiding in the dark caves of Ballybunnion, while the craft
stood out to sea--now, disguised, taking a run up to Paris, and dining
in the 'Cafe de L'Empire,' in all the voluptuous extravagance of th