ries, after all,--eh, Sir George?" said an
old Galway squire to the English general, who acceded to the fact, which he
understood in a very different sense.

"Oh, punch, you are my darlin'," hummed another, as a large, square,
half-gallon decanter of whiskey was placed on the table, the various
decanters of wine being now ignominiously sent down to the end of the board
without any evidence of regret on any face save Sir George Dashwood's, who
mixed his tumbler with a very rebellious conscience.

Whatever were the noise and clamor of the company before, they were nothing
to what now ensued. As one party were discussing the approaching contest,
another was planning a steeple-chase, while two individuals, unhappily
removed from each other the entire length of the table, were what is called
"challenging each other's effects" in a very remarkable manner,--the
process so styled being an exchange of property, when each party, setting
an imaginary value upon some article, barters it for another, the amount
of boot paid and received being determined by a third person, who is the
umpire. Thus a gold breast-pin was swopped, as the phrase is, against a
horse; then a pair of boots, then a Kerry bull, etc.,--every imaginable
species of property coming into the market. Sometimes, as matters of very
dubious value turned up, great laughter was the result. In this very
national pastime, a Mr. Miles Bodkin, a noted fire-eater of the west, was
a great proficient; and it is said he once so completely succeeded in
despoiling an uninitiated hand, that after winning in succession his horse,
gig, harness, etc., he proceeded _seriatim_ to his watch, ring, clothes,
and portmanteau, and actually concluded by winning all he possessed, and
kindly lent him a card-cloth to cover him on his way to the hotel.
His success on the present occasion was considerable, and his spirits
proportionate. The decanter had thrice been replenished, and the flushed
faces and thickened utterance of the guests evinced that from the cold
properties of the claret there was but little to dread. As for Mr. Bodkin,
his manner was incapable of any higher flight, when under the influence of
whiskey, than what it evinced on common occasions; and as he sat at the end
of the table fronting Mr. Blake, he assumed all the dignity of the ruler of
the feast, with an energy no one seemed disposed to question. In answer to
some observations of Sir George, he was led into something like an