“It was a bull from beginning to end. Boyle took it into his head that Dick was a person with whom he had a serious row in Cork. Dick, on the other hand, mistook Boyle for old Caples, whom he had been pursuing with horse-whipping intentions for some months. They met in Kildare Street Club, and very little colloquy satisfied them that they were right in their conjectures, each party being so eagerly ready to meet the views of the other. It never was a difficult matter to find a friend in Dublin; and to do them justice, Irish seconds, generally speaking, are perfectly free from any imputation upon the score of mere delay. No men have less impertinent curiosity as to the cause of the quarrel; wisely supposing that the principals know their own affairs best, they cautiously abstain from indulging any prying spirit, but proceed to discharge their functions as best they may. Accordingly, Sir Harry and Dick were ‘set up,’ as the phrase is, at twelve paces, and to use Boyle’s own words, for I have heard him relate the story,-- “We blazed away, sir, for three rounds. I put two in his hat and one in his neckcloth; his shots went all through the skirt of my coat. “‘We’ll spend the day here,’ says Considine, ‘at this rate. Couldn’t you put them closer?’ “‘And give us a little more time in the word,’ says I. “‘Exactly,’ said Dick. “Well, they moved us forward two paces, and set to loading the pistols again. “By this time we were so near that we had full opportunity to scan each other’s faces. Well, sir, I stared at him, and he at me. “‘What!’ said I. “‘Eh!’ said he. “‘How’s this?’ said I. “‘You’re not Billy Caples?’ said he. “‘Devil a bit!’ said I, ‘nor I don’t think you are Archy Devine;’ and faith, sir, so it appeared, we were fighting away all the morning for nothing; for, somehow, it turned out _it was neither of us!_” What amused me most in this anecdote was the hearing it at such a time and place. That poor Sir Harry’s eccentricities should turn up for discussion on a march in Portugal was singular enough; but after all, life is full of such incongruous accidents. I remember once supping with King Calzoo on the Blue Mountains, in Jamaica. By way of entertaining his guests, some English officers, he ordered one of his suite to sing. We were of course pleased at the opportunity of hearing an Indian war-chant, with a skull and thigh-bone accompaniment; but what was our astonishment to hear the Indian,--a ferocious-looking dog, with an awful scalp-lock, and two streaks of red paint across his chest,--clear his voice well for a few seconds, and then begin, without discomposing a muscle of his gravity, “The Laird of Cockpen!” I need not say that the “Great Raccoon” was a Dumfries man who had quitted Scotland forty years before, and with characteristic prosperity had attained his present rank in a foreign service. “Halt! halt!” cried a deep-toned, manly voice in the leading column, and the word was repeated from mouth to mouth to the rear.