loriously. Matty is there." "Ah, indeed!
poor thing." "Has Fan sported a new habit?" "Is it the old gray with the
hussar braiding? Confound it, that was seedy when I saw them in Corfu. And
Mother Dal as fat and vulgar as ever?" "Dawson of ours was the last,
and was called up for sentence when we were ordered away; of course,
he bolted," etc. Such was the invariable style of question and answer
concerning them; and although some few, either from good feeling or
fastidiousness, relished but little the mode in which it had become
habitual to treat them, I grieve to say that, generally, they were
pronounced fair game for every species of flirtation and love-making
without any "intentions" for the future. I should not have trespassed so
far upon my readers' patience, were I not, in recounting these traits of
my friends above, narrating matters of history. How many are there who may
cast their eyes upon these pages, that will say, "Poor Matilda! I knew her
at Gibraltar. Little Fanny was the life and soul of us all in Quebec."

"Mr. O'Malley," said the adjutant, as I presented myself in the afternoon
of my arrival in Cork to a short, punchy, little red-faced gentleman, in a
short jacket and ducks, "you are, I perceive, appointed to the 14th;
you will have the goodness to appear on parade to-morrow morning. The
riding-school hours are----. The morning drill is----; evening drill----.
Mr. Minchin, you are a 14th man, I believe? No, I beg pardon! a carbineer;
but no matter. Mr. O'Malley, Mr. Minchin; Captain Dounie, Mr. O'Malley.
You'll dine with us to-day, and to-morrow you shall be entered at the
mess."

"Yours are at Santarem, I believe?" said an old, weather-beaten looking
officer with one arm.

"I'm ashamed to say, I know nothing whatever of them; I received my gazette
unexpectedly enough."

"Ever in Cork before, Mr. O'Malley?"

"Never," said I.

"Glorious place," lisped a white-eyelashed, knocker-kneed ensign; "splendid
_gals_, eh?"

"Ah, Brunton," said Minchin, "you may boast a little; but we poor devils--"

"Know the Dals?" said the hero of the lisp, addressing me.

"I haven't that honor," I replied, scarcely able to guess whether what he
alluded to were objects of the picturesque or a private family.

"Introduce him, then, at once," said the adjutant; "we'll all go in the
evening. What will the old squaw think?"

"Not I," said Minchin. "She wrote to the Duke of York about my helping
Matilda at supper, and no