he sweetness of his temper; not debts: not duns:
not misery: not the bottle, not his wife's unhappy position, or his
children's ruined chances. He was perfectly fond of wife and children
after his fashion: he always had the kindest words and smiles for them,
and ruined them with the utmost sweetness of temper. He never could
refuse himself or any man any enjoyment which his money could purchase;
he would share his last guinea with Jack and Tom, and we may be sure he
had a score of such retainers. He would sign his name at the back of
any man's bill, and never pay any debt of his own. He would write on any
side, and attack himself or another man with equal indifference. He
was one of the wittiest, the most amiable, and the most incorrigible of
Irishmen. Nobody could help liking Charley Shandon who saw him once, and
those whom he ruined could scarcely be angry with him.

When Pen and Warrington arrived, the Captain (he had been in an Irish
militia regiment once, and the title remained with him) was sitting on
his bed in a torn dressing-gown, with a desk on his knees, at which he
was scribbling as fast as his rapid pen could write. Slip after slip of
paper fell off the desk wet on to the ground. A picture of his children
was hung up over his bed, and the youngest of them was pattering about
the room.

Opposite the Captain sate Mr. Bungay, a portly man of stolid
countenance, with whom the little child had been trying a conversation.

"Papa's a very clever man," said she; "mamma says so."

"Oh, very," said Mr. Bungay.

"And you're a very rich man, Mr. Bundy," cried the child, who could
hardly speak plain.

"Mary!" said Mamma, from her work.

"Oh, never mind," Bungay roared out with a great laugh; "no harm in
saying I'm rich--he, he--I am pretty well off, my little dear."

"If you're rich, why don't you take papa out of piz'n?" asked the child.

Mamma at this began to wipe her eyes with the work on which she was
employed. (The poor lady had hung curtains up in the room, had brought
the children's picture and placed it there, and had made one or two
attempts to ornament it.) Mamma began to cry; Mr. Bungay turned red, and
looked fiercely out of his bloodshot little eyes; Shandon's pen went on,
and Pen and Warrington arrived with their knock.

Captain Shandon looked up from his work. "How do you do, Mr.
Warrington," he said. "I'll speak to you in a minute. Please sit down,
gentlemen, if you can find places," and away