was the only time I mourned I was not a cav'l'ry-man for the pride av
the spurs to jingle.

'I wint out to think, an' I did a powerful lot av thinkin', but ut all
came round to that shlip av a girl in the dotted blue dhress, wid the
blue eyes an' the sparkil in them. Thin I kept off canteen, an' I kept
to the married quarthers, or near by, on the chanst av meetin' Dinah.
Did I meet her? Oh, my time past, did I not; wid a lump in my throat
as big as my valise an' my heart goin' like a farrier's forge on a
Saturday morning? 'Twas "Good day to ye, Miss Dinah," an' "Good day
t'you, Corp'ril," for a week or two, and divil a bit further could I
get bekaze av the respect I had to that girl that I cud ha' broken
betune finger an' thumb.'

Here I giggled as I recalled the gigantic figure of Dinah Shadd when
she handed me my shirt.

'Ye may laugh,' grunted Mulvaney. 'But I'm speakin' the trut', an'
'tis you that are in fault. Dinah was a girl that wud ha' taken the
imperiousness out av the Duchess av Clonmel in those days. Flower
hand, foot av shod air, an' the eyes av the livin' mornin' she had
that is my wife to-day--ould Dinah, and niver aught else than Dinah
Shadd to me.

''Twas after three weeks standin' off an' on, an' niver makin' headway
excipt through the eyes, that a little drummer-boy grinned in me face
whin I had admonished him wid the buckle av my belt for riotin' all
over the place. "An' I'm not the only wan that doesn't kape to
barricks," sez he. I tuk him by the scruff av his neck,--my heart was
hung on a hair-thrigger those days, you will onderstand,--an' "Out wid
ut," sez I, "or I'll lave no bone av you unbreakable."--"Speak to
Dempsey," sez he howlin'. "Dempsey which?" sez I, "ye unwashed limb av
Satan."--"Av the Bob-tailed Dhragoons," sez he. "He's seen her home
from her aunt's house in the civil lines four times this
fortnight."--"Child!" sez I, dhroppin' him, "you're tongue's stronger
than your body. Go to your quarters. I'm sorry I dhressed you down."

'At that I went four ways to wanst huntin' Dempsey. I was mad to think
that wid all my airs among women I shud ha' been chated by a
basin-faced fool av a cav'l'ry-man not fit to trust on a trunk.
Presintly I found him in our lines--the Bobtails was quartered next
us--an' a tallowy, topheavy son av a she-mule he was wid his big brass
spurs an' his plastrons on his epigastrons an' all. But he niver
flinched a hair.

'"A word wid you, Dempsey," sez I. "