as this fellow--Toole, I remember, was his name--got away
from the arms of the washerwoman his lady, his natural courage and
ferocity returned, and he became the tyrant of all round about him.
All recruits, especially, were the object of the brute's insult and
ill-treatment.

I had no money, as I said, and was sitting very disconsolately over a
platter of rancid bacon and mouldy biscuit, which was served to us at
mess, when it came to my turn to be helped to drink, and I was served,
like the rest, with a dirty tin noggin, containing somewhat more than
half a pint of rum-and-water. The beaker was so greasy and filthy that I
could not help turning round to the messman and saying, 'Fellow, get me
a glass!' At which all the wretches round about me burst into a roar of
laughter, the very loudest among them being, of course, Mr. Toole.
'Get the gentleman a towel for his hands, and serve him a basin of
turtle-soup,' roared the monster, who was sitting, or rather squatting,
on the deck opposite me; and as he spoke he suddenly seized my beaker of
grog and emptied it, in the midst of another burst of applause.

'If you want to vex him, ax him about his wife the washerwoman, who
BATES him,' here whispered in my ear another worthy, a retired link-boy,
who, disgusted with his profession, had adopted the military life.

'Is it a towel of your wife's washing, Mr. Toole?' said I. 'I'm told she
wiped your face often with one.'

'Ax him why he wouldn't see her yesterday, when she came to the ship,'
continued the link-boy. And so I put to him some other foolish jokes
about soapsuds, henpecking, and flat-irons, which set the man into a
fury, and succeeded in raising a quarrel between us. We should have
fallen to at once, but a couple of grinning marines, who kept watch at
the door, for fear we should repent of our bargain and have a fancy to
escape, came forward and interposed between us with fixed bayonets;
but the sergeant coming down the ladder, and hearing the dispute,
condescended to say that we might fight it out like men with FISTES if
we chose, and that the fore-deck should be free to us for that purpose.
But the use of fistes, as the Englishman called them, was not then
general in Ireland, and it was agreed that we should have a pair
of cudgels; with one of which weapons I finished the fellow in four
minutes, giving him a thump across his stupid sconce which laid
him lifeless on the deck, and not receiving myself a single hurt