laboured under a counter-balancing infirmity,
sufficient to have swamped a line-of-battle ship itself. It was simply
this--a most unfortunate propensity to talk of the wrong place, person,
or time, in any society he found himself; and this taste for the mal
apropos, extended so far, that no one ever ventured into company with
him as his friend, without trembling for the result; but even this, I
believe his only fault, resulted from the natural goodness of his
character and intentions; for, believing as he did, in his honest
simplicity, that the arbitrary distinctions of class and rank were held
as cheaply by others as himself, he felt small scruple at recounting to
a duchess a scene in a cabaret, and with as little hesitation would he,
if asked, have sung the "Cruiskeen lawn," or the "Jug of Punch," after
Lablanche had finished the "Al Idea," from Figaro. 'Mauvaise honte,' he
had none; indeed I am not sure that he had any kind of shame whatever,
except possibly when detected with a coat that bore any appearance of
newness, or if overpersuaded to wear gloves, which he ever considered as
a special effeminacy.

Such, in a few words, was the gentleman I now presented to my friends,
and how far he insinuated himself into their good graces, let the fact
tell, that on my return to the breakfast-room, after about an hour's
absence, I heard him detailing the particulars of a route they were to
take by his advice, and also learned that he had been offered and had
accepted a seat in their carriage to Paris.

"Then I'll do myself the pleasure of joining your party, Mrs. Bingham,"
said he. "Bingham, I think, madam, is your name."

"Yes, Sir."

"Any relation, may I ask, of a most dear friend of mine, of the same
name, from Currynaslattery, in the county Wexford?"

"I am really not aware," said Mrs. Bingham. "My husband's family are, I
believe, many of them from that county."

"Ah, what a pleasant fellow was Tom!" said Mr. O'Leary musingly,
and with that peculiar tone which made me tremble, for I knew well
that a reminiscence was coming. "A pleasant fellow indeed."

"Is he alive, sir, now?"

"I believe so, ma'am; but I hear the climate does not agree with him."

"Ah, then, he's abroad! In Italy probably?"

"No, ma'am, in Botany Bay. His brother, they say, might have saved him,
but he left poor Tom to his fate, for he was just then paying court to a
Miss Crow, I think, with a large fortune. Oh, Lord, what have I sai