With his last bottle, those feelings that seemed inevitably connected with whatever is last appeared to steal over him,--a tinge of sadness for pleasures fast passing and nearly passed, a kind of retrospective glance at the fallacy of all our earthly enjoyments, insensibly suggesting moral and edifying reflections, led him by degrees to confess that he was not quite satisfied with himself, though “not very bad for a commissary;” and finally, as the decanter waxed low, he would interlard his meditations by passages of Scripture, singularly perverted by his misconception from their true meaning, and alternately throwing out prospects of censure or approval. Such was Major Monsoon; and to conclude in his own words this brief sketch, he “would have been an excellent officer if Providence had not made him such a confounded, drunken, old scoundrel.” “Now, then, for the King of Spain’s story. Out with it, old boy; we are all good men and true here,” cried Power, as we slowly came along upon the tide up the Tagus, “so you’ve nothing to fear.” “Upon my life,” replied the major, “I don’t half like the tone of our conversation. There is a certain freedom young men affect now a-days regarding morals that is not at all to my taste. When I was five or six and twenty--” “You were the greatest scamp in the service,” cried Power. “Fie, fie, Fred. If I was a little wild or so,”--here the major’s eyes twinkled maliciously,--“it was the ladies that spoiled me; I was always something of a favorite, just like our friend Sparks there. Not that we fared very much alike in our little adventures; for somehow, I believe I was generally in fault in most of mine, as many a good man and many an excellent man has been before.” Here his voice dropped into a moralizing key, as he added, “David, you know, didn’t behave well to old Uriah. Upon my life he did not, and he was a very respectable man.” “The King of Spain’s sherry! the sherry!” cried I, fearing that the major’s digression might lose us a good story. “You shall not have a drop of it,” replied the major. “But the story, Major, the story!” “Nor the story, either.” “What,” said Power, “will you break faith with us?” “There’s none to be kept with reprobates like you. Fill my glass.” “Hold there! stop!” cried Power. “Not a spoonful till he redeems his pledge.” “Well, then, if you must have a story,--for most assuredly I must drink,--I have no objection to give you a leaf from my early reminiscences; and in compliment to Sparks there, my tale shall be of love.” “I dinna like to lose the king’s story. I hae my thoughts it was na a bad ane.” “Nor I neither, Doctor; but--” “Come, come, you shall have that too, the first night we meet in a bivouac, and as I fear the time may not be very far distant, don’t be impatient; besides a love-story--” “Quite true,” said Power, “a love-story claims precedence; _place aux dames_. There’s a bumper for you, old wickedness; so go along.”