to me."

"Oh, is he in town?" said I.

"No; he sailed for Portsmouth yesterday. He is to join the llth--game. I
say, Webber, you've lost the rubber."

"Double or quit, and a dinner at Dunleary," said Webber. "We must show
O'Malley,--confound the Mister!--something of the place."

"Agreed."

The whist was resumed; the boxers, now refreshed by a leg of the
spatch-cock, returned to their gloves; Mr. Moore took up his violin; Mr.
Webber his French horn; and I was left the only unemployed man in the
company.

"I say, Power, you'd better bring the drag over here for us; we can all go
down together."

"I must inform you," said Cavendish, "that, thanks to your philanthropic
efforts of last night, the passage from Grafton Street to Stephen's
Green is impracticable." A tremendous roar of laughter followed this
announcement; and though at the time the cause was unknown to me, I may as
well mention it here, as I subsequently learned it from my companions.

Among the many peculiar tastes which distinguished Mr. Francis Webber was
an extraordinary fancy for street-begging. He had, over and over, won large
sums upon his success in that difficult walk; and so perfect were his
disguises,--both of dress, voice, and manner,--that he actually at one time
succeeded in obtaining charity from his very opponent in the wager. He
wrote ballads with the greatest facility, and sang them with infinite
pathos and humor; and the old woman at the corner of College Green was
certain of an audience when the severity of the night would leave all other
minstrelsy deserted. As these feats of _jonglerie_ usually terminated in a
row, it was a most amusing part of the transaction to see the singer's part
taken by the mob against the college men, who, growing impatient to carry
him off to supper somewhere, would invariably be obliged to have a fight
for the booty.

Now it chanced that a few evenings before, Mr. Webber was returning with a
pocket well lined with copper from a musical _reunion_ he had held at the
corner of York Street, when the idea struck him to stop at the end of
Grafton Street, where a huge stone grating at that time exhibited--perhaps
it exhibits still--the descent to one of the great main sewers of the city.

The light was shining brightly from a pastrycook's shop, and showed the
large bars of stone between which the muddy water was rushing rapidly down
and plashing in the torrent that ran boisterously several feet beneath.

T