at Mike's ideas of medicine, as I turned away
to talk to the major, who was busily engaged beside me. His occupation
consisted in furbishing up a very tarnished and faded uniform, whose white
seams and threadbare lace betokened many years of service.

"Getting up our traps, you see, O'Malley," said he, as he looked with no
small pride at the faded glories of his old vestment. "Astonish them at
Lisbon, we flatter ourselves. I say, Power, what a bad style of dress
they've got into latterly, with their tight waist and strapped trousers;
nothing free, nothing easy, nothing _degage_ about it. When in a campaign,
a man ought to be able to stow prog for twenty-four hours about his person,
and no one the wiser. A very good rule, I assure you, though it sometimes
leads to awkward results. At Vimeira, I got into a sad scrape that way. Old
Sir Harry, that commanded there, sent for the sick return. I was at dinner
when the orderly came, so I packed up the eatables about me, and rode off.
Just, however, as I came up to the quarters, my horse stumbled and threw me
slap on my head.

"'Is he killed?' said Sir Harry.

"'Only stunned, your Excellency,' said some one.

"'Then he'll come to, I suppose. Look for the papers in his pocket.'

"So they turned me on my back, and plunged a hand into my side-pocket;
but, the devil take it! they pulled out a roast hen. Well, the laugh was
scarcely over at this, when another fellow dived into my coat behind, and
lugged out three sausages; and so they went on, till the ground was covered
with ham, pigeon-pie, veal, kidney, and potatoes; and the only thing like a
paper was a mess-roll of the 4th, with a droll song about Sir Harry written
in pencil on the back of it. Devil of a bad affair for me! I was nearly
broke for it; but they only reprimanded me a little, and I was afterwards
attached to the victualling department."

What an anxious thing is the last day of a voyage! How slowly creep the
hours, teeming with memories of the past and expectations of the future!

Every plan, every well-devised expedient to cheat the long and weary
days is at once abandoned; the chess-board and the new novel are alike
forgotten, and the very quarter-deck walk, with its merry gossip and
careless chit-chat, becomes distasteful. One blue and misty mountain, one
faint outline of the far-off shore, has dispelled all thought of these; and
with straining eye and anxious heart, we watch for land.

As the day wears on