"Whist, ye oncivilised, backslidhering pagin!" said my friend, Private O'RAMMIS, for it was indeed he. "Hould on there till I've tould ye. Fwhat was I sayin'? Eyah, eyah, them was the bhoys for the dhrink. When the sun kem out wid a blink in his oi, an' the belly-band av his new shoot tied round him, there was PORTERS and ATHUS lyin' mixed up wid the brandy-kegs, and the houl of the rigimint tearin' round like all the divils from hell bruk loose. "Thin I knew there'd be thrubble, for ye must know, Sorr, there was a little orf'cer bhoy cryin' as tho' his little heart was breakin', an' the Colonel's wife's sister, wid her minowderin' voice--" "Look here, O'RAMMIS," I said, "I don't like to stop you; but isn't it just a trifle rash--I mean," I added hastily, for I saw him fingering his bayonet, "is it quite as wise as it might be to use up all your materials at once? Besides, I seem to have met that little Orf'cer bhoy and the Colonel's wife's sister before. I merely mention it as a friend." "You let 'im go, Sir," put in PORTERS, with his cockney accent. "Lor, Sir, TERENCE knows bloomin' well wot 'e's torkin' about, an' wen 'e's got a story to tell you know there ain't one o' us wot'll get a bloomin' word in; or leastways, Hi carn't." "Sitha," added JOCK ATHUS. "I never gotten but one story told mysen, and he joomped down my throaat for that. Let un taalk, Sir, let un taalk." "Very well," I said, producing one of the half-dozen bottles of champagne that I always carried in my coat-tail pockets whenever I went up to the Barracks to visit my friend O'RAMMIS, "very well. Fire away, TERENCE, and let us have your story." "I'm an ould fool," continued O'RAMMIS, in a convinced tone. "But ye know, JOCK, how 'twas. I misremember fwhat I said to her, but she never stirred, and only luked at me wid her melancolious ois, and wid that my arm was round her waist, for bedad, it was pretty, she was under the moon in the ould barrick square. 'Hould on there,' she says, 'ye boiled thief of Deuteronomy. D'ye think I've kem here to be philandhering afther you. I'd make a better man than you out av empty kyartridges and putty.' Wid that she turned on her heel, and was for marching away. But I was at her soide agin before she'd got her left fut on the beat. 'That's quare,' thinks I to myself; 'but, TERENCE, me bhoy, 'tis you know the thricks av the women. Shoulder arrums,' I thinks, 'and let fly wid the back sight.' Wid that I just squeezed her hand wid the most dellikit av all squeezings, and, sez I, 'MARY, me darlint,' I sez, 'ye're not vexed wid TERENCE, I know;' but you never can tell the way av a woman, for before the words was over the tongue av me, the bhoys kem raging an' ramshackling--"