altogether from what he appeared in on emerging from
the ditch. He was, to make use of a phrase introduced from the ancient
Latin into the modern Greek, togged up in the most approved style of his
Majesty's 48th foot. Bright was the scarlet of his coat--deep the blue
of his facings."

"I beg your pardon," said Antony Harrison, here interrupting the
speaker; "the 48th are not royals, and you ought to know that no
regiment but those which are royal sport blue facings. I remember,
once upon a time, in a coffee-shop, detecting a very smart fellow,
who wrote some clever things in a Magazine published in Edinburgh by one
Blackwood, under the character of a military man, not to be anything of
the kind, by his talking about ensigns in the fusiliers--all the world
knowing that in the fusiliers there are no ensigns, but in their place
second lieutenants. Let me set you right there, Bob; the facings your
friend Brady exhibited to the wondering gaze of the Mallow tea-table
must have been buff--pale buff."

"Buff, black, blue, brown, yellow, Pompadour, brick-dust, no matter what
they were," continued Burke, in nowise pleased by the interruption,
"they were as bright as they could be made, and so was all the lace, and
other traps which I shall not specify more minutely, as I am in presence
of so sharp a critic. He was, in fact, in full dress--as you know is
done in country quarters--and being not a bad plan and elevation of a
man, looked well enough. Miss Dosy, I perceived, had not been perfectly
ignorant of the rank and condition of the gentleman over whom she had
leaped, for she was dressed in her purple satin body and white skirt,
which she always put on when she wished to be irresistible, and her
hair was suffered to flow in long ringlets down her fair neck--and, by
Jupiter, it was fair as a swan's, and as majestic too--and no mistake.
Yes! Dosy Macnamara looked divine that evening.

"Never mind! Tea was brought in by Mary Keefe, and it was just as all
other _teas_ have been and will be. Do not, however, confound it with
the wafer-sliced and hot-watered abominations which are inflicted,
perhaps justly, on the wretched individuals who are guilty of haunting
_soirees_ and _conversaziones_ in this good and bad city of London. The
tea was congou or souchong, or some other of these Chinese affairs, for
anything I know to the contrary; for, having dined at the house, I was
mixing my fifth tumbler when tea was brought in, and Mrs Macn