the
reasons of this anxiety. I, however, most heroically forbore indulging my
curiosity, and added that I should endeavor to find him on my way to the
barracks; and then, hastily looking at my watch, I pronounced it a full
hour later than it really was, and promising to spend the evening--my last
evening--with them, I took my leave and hurried away, in no small flurry to
be once more out of reach of Mrs. Dalrymple's fire, which I every moment
expected to open upon me.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE SUPPER.

Power and I dined together _tete-a-tete_ at the hotel, and sat chatting
over my adventures with the Dalrymples till nearly nine o'clock.

"Come, Charley," said he, at length, "I see your eye wandering very often
towards the timepiece; another bumper, and I'll let you off. What shall it
be?"

"What you like," said I, upon whom a share of three bottles of strong
claret had already made a very satisfactory impression.

"Then champagne for the _coup-de-grace_. Nothing like your _vin mousseux_
for a critical moment,--every bubble that rises sparkling to the surface
prompts some bright thought, or elicits some brilliant idea, that would
only have been drowned in your more sober fluids. Here's to the girl you
love, whoever she be."

"To her bright eyes, then, be it," said I, clearing off a brimming goblet
of nearly half the bottle, while my friend Power seemed multiplied into
any given number of gentlemen standing amidst something like a glass
manufactory of decanters.

"I hope you feel steady enough for this business," said my friend,
examining me closely with the candle.

"I'm an archdeacon," muttered I, with one eye involuntarily closing.

"You'll not let them double on you!"

"Trust me, old boy," said I, endeavoring to look knowing.

"I think you'll do," said he, "so now march. I'll wait for you here,
and we'll go on board together; for old Bloater the skipper says he'll
certainly weigh by daybreak."

"Till then," said I, as opening the door, I proceeded very cautiously to
descend the stairs, affecting all the time considerable _nonchalance_, and
endeavoring, as well as my thickened utterance would permit, to hum:--

"Oh, love is the soul of an Irish dragoon."

If I was not in the most perfect possession of my faculties in the house,
the change to the open air certainly but little contributed to their
restoration; and I scarcely felt myself in the street when my brain became
absolutely one whirl of