Quill, during the whole time he served in the Peninsula, had a servant who was as whimsical and as humorous as himself. This servant, he used to say, was “the best caterer for a gentleman’s table in hard times, that ever came from Kerry.” And so he was; for Morris Quill had always a fowl or a sucking pig for dinner, when the rest of the officers (except those who dined with Morris) were obliged to be contented with a biscuit and a bit of hard beef. Indeed, so excellent a purveyor and cook was Dennis, that his master made it a practice to ask his friends to dine with him, without (_of himself_) knowing where the eatables were to come from. “Dennis,” he would say, “I am going to ask a couple of gentlemen to dine with me to-day--indeed I _have_ asked them already. What have you got?” “Oh musha! Docthor Quill, I don’t know that I have any thing, barrin’ a shouldther o’ vale and a hen or two.” (A shoulder of veal! and a brace of fowls! when they were starving!--no bad things.)--Or, perhaps, as it might happen, Dennis would say, “Faith! Masther, I havn’t a toothful in the place, barrin’ the rashions.” “Well, Dennis, get what you can. Try, can you _buy_ any thing about the country?” (_Buy_, indeed! and not a sixpence in the whole division!) Morris and his friends would come to dinner at the usual hour, perfectly confident that Dennis had done his duty; and, perhaps, a good pair of fowls, or a piece of pickled pork, or a sucking pig, would welcome their longing appetites. “Where did you buy these things, Dennis?” Quill would ask. “O! plase your honour, up there above--over the hill--down there, at a farm-house yondther.” “You’re _sure_ you _bought_ them, Dennis?” “O yes; I ped for ’em, Sir--that is, I offered the money to the farmer; but he said, ‘Never mind, Dennis,’ says he, ‘it will do another time.’ So I mane to pay the next time I go.” “Very well, very well, Dennis; so as you _paid_ for the provision, it’s all well; but take care the Provost doesn’t give you your _change_ one of these days.” “Oh, never mind that, Sir; the Portuguese hereabouts all knows me very well, and wouldn’t mind if I never ped them a vintin.” And they had a right to know Dennis,--at least their _live stock_ had; for there was scarcely a fowl, rabbit, pig, sheep, or calf in the country, that he had not paid his respects to. Dennis used to say, “We are here starvin’ and fightin’ for the Portuguese; so the laste they may do, is to give us our dinner, _at any rate_.” The last anecdote of this singular character, which I recollect, is as follows:--