I
could not help seeing that Miss Dosy was making comparisons that were
rather odious, as she glanced from the gay uniform of the Ensign on my
habiliments, which having been perpetrated by a Mallow tailor with a
hatchet, or pitchfork, or pickaxe, or some such tool, did not stand the
scrutiny to advantage. I was, I think, a better-looking fellow than
Brady. Well, well--laugh if you like. I am no beauty, I know; but then,
consider that what I am talking of was sixteen years ago, and more; and
a man does not stand the battering I have gone through for these sixteen
years with impunity. Do you call the thirty or forty thousand tumblers
of punch, in all its varieties, that I have since imbibed, nothing?"

"Yes," said Jack Ginger, with a sigh, "there was a song we used to sing
on board the Brimstone, when cruising about the Spanish main--

"'If Mars leaves his scars, jolly Bacchus as well
Sets his trace on the face, which a toper will tell;
But which a more merry campaign has pursued,
The shedder of wine, or the shedder of blood?'

"I forget the rest of it. Poor Ned Nixon! It was he who made that
song--he was afterwards bit in two by a shark, having tumbled overboard
in the cool of the evening, one fine summer day, off Port Royal."

"Well, at all events," said Burke, continuing his narrative, "I thought
I was a better-looking fellow than my rival, and was fretted at being
sung down. I resolved to outstay him--and though he sate long enough, I,
who was more at home, contrived to remain after him, but it was only to
hear him extolled.

"'A very nice young man,' said Mrs Macnamara.

"'An extreme nice young man,' responded Miss Theodosia.

"'A perfect gentleman in his manners; he puts me quite in mind of my
uncle, the late Jerry O'Regan,' observed Mrs Macnamara.

"'Quite the gentleman in every particular,' ejaculated Miss Theodosia.

"'He has seen a great deal of the world for so young a man,' remarked
Mrs Macnamara.

"'He has mixed in the best society, too,' cried Miss Theodosia.

"'It is a great advantage to a young man to travel,' quoth Mrs
Macnamara.

"'And a very great disadvantage to a young man to be always sticking at
home,' chimed in Miss Theodosia, looking at me; 'it shuts them out from
all chances of the elegance which we have just seen displayed by Ensign
Brady of the 48th Foot.'

"'For my part,' said I, 'I do not think him such an elegant fellow at
all. Do you remember, Dosy Macna