ere a Mahajun of Puli, in Marwur, or a Delhi Pathan, or a Wali Dad,
or something of that sort, and now you seem to have turned into an
Irishman. Can you tell me how it is done?"

"Whist, ye oncivilised, backslidhering pagin!" said my friend, Private
O'RAMMIS, for it was indeed he. "Hould on there till I've tould ye.
Fwhat was I sayin'? Eyah, eyah, them was the bhoys for the dhrink.
When the sun kem out wid a blink in his oi, an' the belly-band av his
new shoot tied round him, there was PORTERS and ATHUS lyin' mixed up
wid the brandy-kegs, and the houl of the rigimint tearin' round like
all the divils from hell bruk loose.

"Thin I knew there'd be thrubble, for ye must know, Sorr, there was a
little orf'cer bhoy cryin' as tho' his little heart was breakin', an'
the Colonel's wife's sister, wid her minowderin' voice--"

"Look here, O'RAMMIS," I said, "I don't like to stop you; but isn't it
just a trifle rash--I mean," I added hastily, for I saw him fingering
his bayonet, "is it quite as wise as it might be to use up all your
materials at once? Besides, I seem to have met that little Orf'cer
bhoy and the Colonel's wife's sister before. I merely mention it as
a friend."

"You let 'im go, Sir," put in PORTERS, with his cockney accent. "Lor,
Sir, TERENCE knows bloomin' well wot 'e's torkin' about, an' wen
'e's got a story to tell you know there ain't one o' us wot'll get a
bloomin' word in; or leastways, Hi carn't."

"Sitha," added JOCK ATHUS. "I never gotten but one story told mysen,
and he joomped down my throaat for that. Let un taalk, Sir, let un
taalk."

"Very well," I said, producing one of the half-dozen bottles of
champagne that I always carried in my coat-tail pockets whenever I
went up to the Barracks to visit my friend O'RAMMIS, "very well. Fire
away, TERENCE, and let us have your story."

"I'm an ould fool," continued O'RAMMIS, in a convinced tone. "But
ye know, JOCK, how 'twas. I misremember fwhat I said to her, but she
never stirred, and only luked at me wid her melancolious ois, and
wid that my arm was round her waist, for bedad, it was pretty, she
was under the moon in the ould barrick square. 'Hould on there,' she
says, 'ye boiled thief of Deuteronomy. D'ye think I've kem here to be
philandhering afther you. I'd make a better man than you out av empty
kyartridges and putty.' Wid that she turned on her heel, and was for
marching away. But I was at her soide agin before she'd got her left
fut on the be