"I hope my breath is not offensive from drink, Mrs. Fay," said Doyle, in an amatory whisper to the leg of the table. "Ah, get out o' that, Misther Doyle," said Tim; accompanying the exclamation with a good shake, which somewhat roused the prostrate form. "Who's there?" "I want you to come to bed, sir;--eh, don't be so foolish, Misther Doyle. Sure you don't think the misthress would be rowlin' on the flure there wid you, as dhrunk as a pig----" "Dare not wound her fame! Who says a word of Mrs. Fay?" "Arrah, sure you're talkin' there about her this half-hour." "False villain!--Whisht, my darling," said he to the leg of the table; "I'll never betray you. Hug me tight, Mrs. Fay!" "Bad luck to the care I'll take any more about you," say Tim. "Sleep on the flure, if you like." And Doyle was left to pass the night in the soft imaginary delights of Mrs. Fay's mahogany embraces. How fared it with James Reddy? Alas! poor James was doomed to a night of torment, the effects of which he remembered for many days after. In fact, had James been left to his choice, he would rather have slept with the house-dog than with the doctor; but he dreaded the consequences of letting old Jack perceive his antipathy; and visions of future chastisement from the doctor's satirical tongue awed him into submission to the present punishment. He sneaked into bed, therefore, and his deep potations ensured him immediate sleep, from which he awoke, however, in the middle of the night in torture, from the deep scratches inflicted upon him by every kick of old Growling. At last poor Reddy could stand it no longer, and the earliest hour of dawn revealed him to the doctor putting on his clothes, swearing like a trooper at one moment, and at the next apostrophising the genius of gentility. "What it is to have to do with a person that is not a gentleman!" he exclaimed, as he pulled on one leg of his trousers. "What is the matter with you?" asked old Jack from the bed. "The matter, sir, is, that I'm going." "Is it at this hour! Tut, man, don't be a fool. Get into bed again." "Never, sir, with _you_ at least. I have seldom slept two in a bed, Dr. Growling, for my gentlemanly habits forbid it; but when circumstances have obliged me, it has been with gentlemen--_gentlemen_, doctor," and he laid a stress on the word--"gentlemen, sir, who cut their toe-nails. Sir, I am a serious sufferer by your coarse habits; you have scratched me, sir, nearly to death. I am one gore of blood----" "Tut, man! 't was not my nails scratched you; it was only my spurs I put on going to bed, to keep you at a distance from me; you were so disgustingly drunk, my _gentleman_!--look there!" and he poked his leg out of bed, and there, sure enough, Reddy saw a spur buckled: and, dumb-foundered at this evidence of the doctor's atrocity, he snatched up his clothes, and rushed from the room, as from the den of a bear.