th no peculiar pleasure that I dressed for our dinner party. Major
O'Shaughnessy, our host, was one of that class of my countrymen I cared
least for,--a riotous, good-natured, noisy, loud-swearing, punch-drinking
western; full of stories of impossible fox hunts, and unimaginable duels,
which all were acted either by himself or some member of his family. The
company consisted of the adjutant, Monsoon, Ferguson, Trevyllian, and some
eight or ten officers with whom I was acquainted. As is usual on such
occasions, the wine circulated freely, and amidst the din and clamor of
excited conversation, the fumes of Burgundy, and the vapor of cigar smoke,
we most of us became speedily mystified. As for me, my evil destiny would
have it that I was placed exactly opposite Trevyllian, with whom upon more
than one occasion I happened to differ in opinion, and the question was in
itself some trivial and unimportant one; yet the tone which he assumed, and
of which, I too could not divest myself in reply, boded anything rather
than an amicable feeling between us. The noise and turmoil about prevented
the others remarking the circumstance; but I could perceive in his manner
what I deemed a studied determination to promote a quarrel, while I felt
within myself a most unchristian-like desire to indulge his fancy.

"Worse fellows at passing the bottle than Trevyllian and O'Malley there I
have rarely sojourned with," cried the major; "look if they haven't got
eight decanters between them, and here we are in a state of African
thirst."

"How can you expect him to think of thirst when such perfumed billets
as that come showering upon him?" said the adjutant, alluding to a
rose-colored epistle a servant had placed within my hands.

"Eight miles of a stone-wall country in fifteen minutes,--devil a lie in
it!" said O'Shaughnessy, striking the table with, his clinched fist; "show
me the man would deny it."

"Why, my dear fellow--"

"Don't be dearing me. Is it 'no' you'll be saying me?"

"Listen, now; there's O'Reilly, there--"

"Where is he?"

"He's under the table."

"Well, it's the same thing. His mother had a fox--bad luck to you, don't
scald me with the jug--his mother had a fox-cover in Shinrohan."

When O'Shaughnessy had got thus far in his narrative, I had the opportunity
of opening my note, which merely contained the following words: "Come to
the ball at the Casino, and bring the Cadeau you promised."

I had scarcely read this ov