a bachelor than encounter them. "She knew how to catch me!
'A row to fight through, and no questions asked about money, O'Shea,'
says she. 'Can you resist temptation like that?'"

As he alighted at the hotel, he saw Agincourt standing at a window, and
evidently laughing at the dripping, mud-stained appearance he presented.

"I hope and trust that was n't the nag I bought this morning," said he
to O'Shea, as he entered the room.

"The very same; and I never saw him in finer heart. If you only
witnessed the way he carried me through those ploughed fields out there!
He's strong in the loins as a cart-horse."

"I must say that you appear to have ridden him as a friend's horse. He
seemed dead beat, as he was led away."

"He's fresh as a four-year old."

"Well, never mind, go and dress for dinner, for you're half an hour
behind time already."

O'Shea was not sorry to have the excuse, and harried off to make his
toilet.

Freytag was aware that his guest was a "Milor'," and the dinner was very
good, and the wine reasonably so; and the two, as they placed a little
spider-table between them before the fire, seemed fully conscious of all
the enjoyment of the situation.

Agincourt said, "Is not this jolly?" And so it was. And what is there
jollier than to be about sixteen or seventeen years of age, with good
health, good station, and ample means? To be launched into manhood,
too, as a soldier, without one detracting sense of man's troubles and
cares,--to feel that your elders condescend to be your equals, and will
even accept your invitation to dinner!--ay, and more, practise towards
you all those little flatteries and attentions which, however vapid ten
years later, are positive ecstasies now!

But of all its glorious privileges there is not one can compare with the
boundless self-confidence of youth, that implicit faith not alone in
its energy and activity, its fearless contempt for danger, and its
indifference to hardships, but, more strange still, in its superior
sharpness and knowledge of life! Oh dear! are we not shrewd fellows
when we matriculate at Christ Church, or see ourselves gazetted Cornet
in the Horse Guards Purple? Who ever equalled us in all the wiles and
schemes of mankind? Must he not rise early who means to dupe us? Have
we not a registered catalogue of all the knaveries that have ever been
practised on the unsuspecting? Truly have we; and if suspicion were a
safeguard, nothing can harm us.

Now,