d "Peninsular" is coupled with
the essenced and dandified Adonis of the corps; the man of literary
tastes and cultivated pursuits, with the empty headed, ill informed
youth, fresh from Harrow or Westminster. This case offered no exception
to the rule; for though there were few men possessed of more assimilating
powers than O'Flaherty, yet certainly his companion did put the faculty
to the test, for any thing more unlike him, there never existed. Tom all
good humour and high spirits--making the best of every thing--never
non-plussed--never taken aback--perfectly at home, whether flirting with
a Lady Charlotte in her drawing-room, or crossing a grouse mountain in
the highlands--sufficiently well read to talk on any ordinary topic--and
always ready-witted enough to seem more so. A thorough sportsman,
whether showing forth in the "park" at Melton, whipping a trout-stream in
Wales, or filling a country-house with black cock and moor-fowl; an
unexceptionable judge of all the good things in life, from a pretty ancle
to a well hung tilbury--from the odds at hazard to the "Comet vintage."
Such, in brief, was Tom. Now his confrere was none of these; he had been
drafted from the Galway militia to the line, for some election services
rendered by his family to the government candidate; was of a saturnine
and discontented habit; always miserable about some trifle or other, and
never at rest till he had drowned his sorrows in Jamaica rum--which,
since the regiment was abroad, he had copiously used as a substitute for
whiskey. To such an extent had this passion gained upon him, that a
corporal's guard was always in attendance whenever he dined out, to
convey him home to the barracks.

The wearisome monotony of a close garrison, with so ungenial a companion,
would have damped any man's spirits but O'Flaherty's. He, however, upon
this, as other occasions in life, rallied himself to make the best of it;
and by short excursions within certain prescribed limits along the river
side, contrived to shoot and fish enough to get through the day, and
improve the meagre fare of his mess-table. Malone never appeared before
dinner--his late sittings at night requiring all the following day to
recruit him for a new attack upon the rum bottle.

Now, although his seeing so little of his brother officer was any thing
but unpleasant to O'Flaherty, yet the ennui of such a life was gradually
wearing him, and all his wits were put in requisition to f