PIPECLAY.--He can't well help minding his ancestors when he daily and hourly feels the effects of their indiscretions. O'SHEEVO.--But d'ye mean to say that if all his ancestors were fast men, the whole of their diseases would be accumulated on his shoulders? PIPECLAY.--Not exactly. These things wear out in time, or are got rid of by crossing the breed; the nearer in time a man is to his rollicking ancestor, the more plainly he shows the hereditary taint. O'SHEEVO.--Then if he's his contemporary he's as bad as himself. I don't think, though, that my father showed the want of the Ballyswig estate a bit more than I do. Bad luck to my old aunt who forgot her successors though her ancestors remembered her. OLDHAM.--Buzza that jug, Lovell, and touch the bell for another; these discussions make one thirsty. O'SHEEVO.--Thirst is nothing here to what it is in the tropics. By Jove! how I used to suffer at Jamaica. LOVELL.--Nature is said to have there provided for the craving by a bountiful supply of water. The name Jamaica signifies, I believe, the "Isle of Springs." You had excellent water there, Major, had you not? O'SHEEVO.--I always understood the water was very good, but I can't exactly remember that I ever tasted it. Nature is an affectionate mother, but there's no nourishment in her milk, so I put myself out to nurse upon sangree and portercup. PIPECLAY.--Nasty, unwholesome stuff; there's a yellow fever in every glass of it. O'SHEEVO.--It may be one of the ingredients; but that's no matter, if it's well mixed, because the other things correct it. OLDHAM.--Our old second battalion buried I don't know how many in the seven years they spent out there. They always took the more intricate mixtures in the day time;--madeira and champagne at dinner, claret after, and topped up with brandy and water; after which they adjourned to settle, in the morning light, any little affairs of honour that had turned up in the evening. LOVELL.--Were these of so regular occurrence? OLDHAM.--Seldom missed a night. The old cotton tree outside the mess-room, at Stoney Hill, was always one of the stations; and as full of bullets as a pudding is of plums. It was settling every thing before the meeting separated that made us such a united jolly set of fellows. PIPECLAY.--How much better we do things in the present day! OLDHAM.--Another of your modern prejudices. How can any man of spirit think the investigations, explanations, and newspaper correspondence as creditable as settling the matter off-hand and like gentlemen? PIPECLAY.--But a duel does not always settle the right and wrong of an affair; and surely the party in the wrong ought to be the sufferer. Human life has a higher value than in old times; and, therefore, to avoid the casualties caused by duels, the laws punish the duellist.