kly over, and before we had
reached our destination, I had become tolerably intimate with all the
party, who were evidently picked men, selected by O'Flaherty for a
pleasant evening.

We drove along the pier to the wharf, where the steamer lay, and were
received at once by Tom's friend with all the warm welcome and
hospitality of a sailor, united with the address and polish of a very
finished gentleman. As we descended the companion-ladder to the cabin,
my mind became speedily divested of any fears I might have indulged in,
as to the want of preparation of our entertainer. The table was covered
with all the appanage of handsome plate and cut glass, while the
side-tables glittered with a magnificent dessert, and two large
wine-coolers presented an array of champagne necks shining with their
leaden cravats that would have tempted an anchorite.

I remember very little else of that evening than the coup d'oeil I have
mentioned; besides, were my memory more retentive, I might scruple to
trespass farther on my reader's patience, by the detail of those
pleasures, which, like love-letters, however agreeable to the parties
immediately concerned, are very unedifying to all others. I do remember,
certainly, that good stories and capital songs succeeded each other with
a rapidity only to be equalled by the popping of corks; and have also a
very vague and indistinct recollection of a dance round the table,
evidently to finish a chorus, but which, it appears, finished me too, for
I saw no more that night.

How many men have commemorated the waking sensations of their fellow-men,
after a night's debauch; yet at the same time, I am not aware of any one
having perfectly conveyed even a passing likeness to the mingled throng
of sensations which crowd one's brain on such an occasion. The doubt of
what has passed, by degrees yielding to the half-consciousness of the
truth, the feeling of shame, inseparable except to the habitually
hard-goer, for the events thus dimly pictured, the racking headache and
intense thirst, with the horror of the potation recently indulged in: the
recurring sense of the fun or drollery of a story or an incident which
provokes us again to laugh despite the jarring of our brain from the
shaking. All this and more most men have felt, and happy are they when
their waking thoughts are limited to such, at such times as these--the
matter becomes considerably worse, when the following morning calls for
some consi