“‘Set a salmon!’ shouted twenty voices in a breath. ‘The thing’s impossible.’ “‘Would you like a bet on it?’ asked I drily. “‘No, no--damn it; no more bets; but surely----’ “‘Too provoking, after all,’ muttered I, ‘to have lost so fine a fish, and get such a ducking’; and with that I mounted my barb, and, waving my hand, wished them a good-bye, and galloped into Killaloe. “This story I have only related, because, insignificant as it was, it became in a manner the pivot of my then fate in life. The jockey at once made me an offer of partnership in his traffic, displaying before me the numerous advantages of such a proposal. I was a disengaged man--my prospects not peculiarly brilliant--the state of my exchequer by no means encouraging the favourite nostrum of a return to cash payments, and so I acceded, and entered at once upon my new profession with all the enthusiasm I was always able to command, no matter what line of life solicited my adoption. “But it’s near one o’clock, and so now, Mr. O’Leary, if you’ve no objection, we’ll have a grill and a glass of Madeira, and then, if you can keep awake an hour or so longer, I’ll try and finish my adventures.” CHAPTER VII. O’KELLY’S TALE.--CONTINUED. “I left off at that flattering portion of my history where I became a horse-dealer; in this capacity I travelled over a considerable portion of Ireland, now larking it in the West--jollifying in the South--and occasionally suffering a penance for both enjoyments, by a stray trip to Ulster. In these rambles I contrived to make acquaintance with most of the resident gentry, who, by the special freemasonry that attends my calling, scrupled not to treat me on terms of half equality, and even invite me to their houses--a piece of condescension on their part, which they well knew was paid for, in more solid advantages. “In a word, Mr. O’Leary, I became a kind of moral amphibia, with powers to sustain life in two distinct and opposite elements--now brushing my way among frieze-coated farmers, trainers, dealers, sharpers, and stablemen; now floating on the surface of a politer world, where the topics of conversation took a different range, and were couched in a very different vocabulary. “My knowledge of French, and my acquaintance with Parisian life, at least as seen in that class in which I used to mix, added to a kind of natural tact, made me, as far as manners and ‘usage’ were concerned, fully the equal of those with whom I associated; and I managed matters so well, that the circumstance of my being seen in the morning with cords and tops of jockey cut, showing off a ‘screw,’ or extolling the symmetry of a spavined hackney, never interfered with the pretensions I put forward at night, when, arranged in suit of accurate black, I turned over the last new opera, or delivered a very scientific criticism on the new ‘ballet’ in London, or the latest fashion imported from the Continent.