“I’d as lieve have a sack o’ pitaties on me car as—” He stopped short and plunged the pipe into his pocket, as the object of the discussion suddenly appeared upon the steps. “Here is a sovereign for the car and half a sovereign for yourself,” exclaimed the young officer, tossing the coins to the expectant Malone. “Shure you won’t forget the little mare, Captain?” “Forget her? Not likely, or you either, Patsey.” “Ye’ll throw her a half a crown for to dhrink yer helth, Major?” “Drink my health? What do you mean?” “Begorra, she’d take a glass o’ sperrits wud a gauger, Curnil; an’ if she wudn’t I wud. Me an’ her is wan, an’ I’ve dacent manners on my side, so I’ll drink yer honner’s helth an’ that ye may never die till yer fit.” “That sentiment is worth the money,” laughed the traveller, tossing the half-crown in the air and disappearing into the hotel. “Well, be the mortial frost, Misther Malone,” cried Lanty Kerrigan in an enthusiastic burst of admiration, “but yer the shupayriorest man in Connemara.” Percy Bingham, of the —th Regiment of the Line, found Westport even more dreary than the Curragh of Kildare. From the latter he could run up to Dublin in the evening, and return next morning for parade, even if he had to turn into bed afterwards; from Westport there was nothing to be done but the summit of Croagh Patrick or a risky cruise amongst the three hundred little islands dotting Clew Bay. “_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate_” was written upon the entrance to the town. All was dreariness, dulness, and desolation, empty quays, ruined warehouses, and squalid misery. The gentry, with few exceptions, were absentees, and those whom interest or necessity detained in the country spent “the season” in London or Dublin, returning, with weary hearts and empty pockets, to the _exile_ of their _homes_, there to vegetate until spring and the March rents, wrung from an oppressed tenantry, would enable them to flit citywards once more. To Bingham, to whom London was the capital of the world, and the United Service Club the capital of London, this phase in his military career was a horrid nightmare. Born and bred an Englishman, he had been educated to regard Ireland as little better than a Fiji island, and considerably worse than a West African station; and, filled to the brim with Saxon prejudice, he took up his Irish quarters with mingled feelings of disgust and despair. An ardent disciple of Izaak Walton, he clung to the safety-valve of rod and reel, avenging his exclusion from May Fair and Belgravia by a wicked raid upon every trout-stream within a ten-mile radius of the barracks, and, having obtained a few days’ leave of absence, arrived at Ballynacushla for the purpose of “wetting his line” in the saucy little rivers that joyously leap into the placid bosom of the land-locked Killeries. “So my dinner is ready _at last_,” exclaimed Bingham pettishly. A good digestion had waited two mortal hours on appetite.