These effects are not produced merely among those who are quarrelsome in their cups, for I call the whole 14th to witness that I am not such; but to any person so disguised, the inoffensiveness of the object is no security on the other hand,--for I once knew an eight-day clock kicked down a barrack stairs by an old Scotch major, because he thought it was laughing at him. To this source alone, whatever it be, can I attribute the feeling of rising indignation with which I contemplated the luckless cornet, who, seated at the fire, unnoticed and uncared for, seemed a very unworthy object to vent anger or ill-temper upon. “Mr. Sparks, I fear,” said I, endeavoring at the time to call up a look of very sovereign contempt,--“Mr. Sparks, I fear, regards my visit here in the light of an intrusion.” Had poor Mr. Sparks been told to proceed incontinently up the chimney before him, he could not have looked more aghast. Reply was quite out of his power. So sudden and unexpectedly was this charge of mine made that he could only stare vacantly from one to the other; while I, warming with my subject, and perhaps--but I’ll not swear it--stimulated by a gentle pressure from a soft hand near me, continued:-- “If he thinks for one moment that my attentions in this family are in any way to be questioned by him, I can only say--” “My dear O’Malley, my dear boy!” said the major, with the look of a father-in-law in his eye. “The spirit of an officer and a gentleman spoke there,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, now carried beyond all prudence by the hope that my attack might arouse my dormant friend into a counter-declaration; nothing, however, was further from poor Sparks, who began to think he had been unconsciously drinking tea with five lunatics. “If he supposes,” said I, rising from my chair, “that his silence will pass with me as any palliation--” “Oh, dear! oh, dear! there will be a duel. Papa, dear, why don’t you speak to Mr. O’Malley?” “There now, O’Malley, sit down. Don’t you see he is quite in error?” “Then let him say so,” said I, fiercely. “Ah, yes, to be sure,” said Fanny. “Do say it; say anything he likes, Mr. Sparks.” “I must say,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, “however sorry I may feel in my own house to condemn any one, that Mr. Sparks is very much in the wrong.” Poor Sparks looked like a man in a dream. “If he will tell Charles,--Mr. O’Malley, I mean,” said Matilda, blushing scarlet, “that he meant nothing by what he said--” “But I never spoke, never opened my lips!” cried out the wretched man, at length sufficiently recovered to defend himself. “Oh, Mr. Sparks!” “Oh, Mr. Sparks!” “Oh, Mr. Sparks!” chorussed the three ladies. While the old major brought up the rear with an “Oh, Sparks, I must say--” “Then, by all the saints in the calendar, I must be mad,” said he; “but if I have said anything to offend you, O’Malley, I am sincerely sorry for it.”