I had returned on one occasion to the barracks after a tour of visits in the county to many most agreeable houses. Rather dejected, I was watching Illustrious Tom unpacking my portmanteau. At first I did not take much notice, but very soon my attention was drawn to my servant’s performances. First he placed a blotting-book on the table, then he took out another from my portmanteau, and put it on my chest of drawers, and then he placed another somewhere else, and so on, till at last he could find no more vacant resting-places, and he stood in the middle of the room, bearing some resemblance to a sapient owl, with a blotting-book held in his claws. ‘What _are_ you doing, Tom, with all these blotting-books?’ I at length exclaimed. ‘Sure,’ said the Illustrious, ‘I thought ye would be plased. I tuck the different books from the bed-rooms in which yer honour slept. They look well _here_, and they’ll nivir miss them _there_.’ As I received his intimation with shouts of laughter and volleys of abuse, Tom drew himself up to attention, faced about, and marched out of my room. My time was fully occupied for several days in finding out to whom the different blotting-books belonged. A sudden order came for us to leave Scotland and proceed to Ireland. We embarked at Aberdeen in a steamer, and, after a good passage, arrived at Granton, where we landed, and marched through Edinburgh, and thence by train to Glasgow, in which town we were delayed a few days, and then we were taken over to Ireland. While in Glasgow we were made honorary members of the 92nd Highlanders’ mess, and at the end of our stay, when we asked for our bills, were told that we were the guests of the regiment.