“Sure I drove him out of the Tenth before he was three weeks with the regiment.”
“Ay, I remember; you began the story for me one night on the retreat from the Coa, but something broke it off in the middle.”
“Just so, I was sent for to the rear to take off some gentleman’s legs that weren’t in dancing condition; but as there’s no fear of interruption now, I’ll finish the story. But first, let us have a peep at the wounded. What beautiful anatomists they are in the French artillery! Do you feel the thing I have now in my forceps? There,—don’t jump,—that’s a bit of the brachial nerve most beautifully displayed. Faith, I think I’ll give Mike a demonstration.”
“Oh, Mister Quill, dear! Oh, Doctor, darling!”
“Arrah, Mickey, now can’t ye be asy?” sang out Maurice, with a perfect imitation of Mike’s voice and manner.
“A little lint here! Bend your arm,—that’s it—Don’t move your fingers. Now, Mickey, make me a cup of coffee with a glass of brandy in it. And now, Charley, for Sparks. I believe I told you what kind of fellows the Tenth were,—regular out-and-outers. We hadn’t three men in the regiment that were not from the south of Ireland,—the bocca Corkana on their lips, fun and devilment in their eyes, and more drollery and humbug in their hearts than in all the messes in the service put together. No man had any chance among them if he wasn’t a real droll one; every man wrote his own songs and sang them too. It was no small promotion could tempt a fellow to exchange out of the corps. You may think, then, what a prize your friend Sparks proved to us; we held a court-martial upon him the week after he joined. It was proved in evidence that he had never said a good thing in his life, and had about as much notion of a joke as a Cherokee has of the Court of Chancery; and as to singing, Lord bless you, he had a tune with wooden turns to it,—it was most cruel to hear; and then the look of him, those eyes, like dropsical oysters, and the hair standing every way, like a field of insane flax, and the mouth with a curl in it like the slit in the side of a fiddle. A pleasant fellow that for a mess that always boasted the best-looking chaps in the service.
“‘What’s to be done with him?’ said the major; ‘shall we tell him we are ordered to India, and terrify him about his liver?’
“‘Or drill him into a hectic fever?’
“‘Or drink him dry?’
“‘Or get him into a fight and wing him?’