There were some cross expostulations, but eventually the fellow came out to Puddock. Perhaps the feat was not quite so perilous as he represented; but it certainly was not a pleasant one. Puddock had a rude and crazy sort of banister to cling to, and a rugged and slippery footing; but slowly and painfully, from one post to another, he made his way, and at last jumped on the solid, though not dry land, his life and his buckles safe. 'I'll give you a guinea in the morning, if you come to my quarterth, Mr. ---- Thir,' and, without waiting a second, away he ran by the footpath, and across the bridge, right into the Phoenix, and burst into the club-room. There were assembled old Arthur Slowe, Tom Trimmer, from Lucan, old Trumble, Jack Collop, Colonel Stafford, and half-a-dozen more members, including some of the officers--O'Flaherty among the number, a little 'flashy with liquor' as the phrase then was. Puddock stood in the wide opened door, with the handle in his hand. He was dishevelled, soused with water, bespattered with mud, his round face very pale, and he fixed a wild stare on the company. The clatter of old Trimmer's backgammon, Slowe's disputations over the draftboard with Colonel Stafford, Collop's dissertation on the points of that screw of a horse he wanted to sell, and the general buzz of talk, were all almost instantaneously suspended on the appearance of this phantom, and Puddock exclaimed-- 'Gentlemen, I'm thorry to tell you, Captain Cluffe ith, I fear, drowned!' 'Cluffe?' 'Drowned?' 'By Jupiter!' 'You don't say so? and a round of such ejaculations followed this announcement. Allow me here to mention that I permit my people to swear by all the persons of the Roman mythology. There was a horrible profanity in the matter of oaths in those days, and I found that without changing the form of sentences, and sacrificing idioms, at times, I could not manage the matter satisfactorily otherwise. 'He went over the salmon weir--I saw him--Coyle's--weir--headlong, poor fellow! I shouted after him, but he could not anthwer, so pray let's be off, and--' Here he recognised the colonel with a low bow and paused. The commanding officer instantaneously despatched Lieutenant Brady, who was there, to order out Sergeant Blakeney and his guard, and any six good swimmers in the regiment who might volunteer, with a reward of twenty guineas for whoever should bring in Cluffe alive, or ten guineas for his body; and the fat fellow all the time in his bed sipping sack posset! So away ran Brady and a couple more of the young fellows at their best pace--no one spared himself on this errand--and little Puddock and another down to the bridge. It was preposterous.