y acquaintance, and amongst them
a gentleman I did not much care to see, look you! I saw a uniform that
I knew--red and yellow facings--Cutts's, my dear; and the wearer of this
was no other than his Excellency Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian, whom we
all know of!

"He stared me full in the face, right into my eye (t'other one was
patched, you know), and after standing stock-still with his mouth open,
gave a step back, and then a step forward, and then screeched out, 'It's
Brock!'

"'I beg your pardon, sir,' says I; 'did you speak to me?'

"'I'll SWEAR it's Brock,' cries Gal, as soon as he hears my voice, and
laid hold of my cuff (a pretty bit of Mechlin as ever you saw, by the
way).

"'Sirrah!' says I, drawing it back, and giving my Lord a little touch
of the fist (just at the last button of the waistcoat, my dear,--a rare
place if you wish to prevent a man from speaking too much: it sent him
reeling to the other end of the room). 'Ruffian!' says I. 'Dog!' says
I. 'Insolent puppy and coxcomb! what do you mean by laying your hand on
me?'

"'Faith, Major, you giv him his BILLYFUL,' roared out a long Irish
unattached ensign, that I had treated with many a glass of Nantz at the
tavern. And so, indeed, I had; for the wretch could not speak for some
minutes, and all the officers stood laughing at him, as he writhed and
wriggled hideously.

"'Gentlemen, this is a monstrous scandal,' says one officer. 'Men of
rank and honour at fists like a parcel of carters!'

"'Men of honour!' says the Count, who had fetched up his breath by this
time. (I made for the door, but Macshane held me and said, 'Major, you
are not going to shirk him, sure?' Whereupon I gripped his hand and
vowed I would have the dog's life.)

"'Men of honour!' says the Count. 'I tell you the man is a deserter, a
thief, and a swindler! He was my corporal, and ran away with a thou--'

"'Dog, you lie!' I roared out, and made another cut at him with my cane;
but the gentlemen rushed between us.

"'O bluthanowns!' says honest Macshane, 'the lying scounthrel this
fellow is! Gentlemen, I swear be me honour that Captain Wood was wounded
at Barcelona; and that I saw him there; and that he and I ran away
together at the battle of Almanza, and bad luck to us.'

"You see, my dear, that these Irish have the strongest imaginations in
the world; and that I had actually persuaded poor Mac that he and I were
friends in Spain. Everybody knew Mac, who was a character in his