“I'm glad that there's nobody to hear them words but myself, Mr. Massingbred,” said the other, with all the slowness and deliberation of incipient drunkenness; “I'm rejoiced, sir, that it's in the confidential intercourse of friendly—friendly—communication—that the son of my old and valued friend—Moore Massingbred—used expressions like that.”
Jack started with amazement at this speech; he had not the slightest suspicion till that moment that Magennis and his father had ever known each other, or even met. A very little patience, however, on his part served to solve the difficulty; for he discovered that one of the peculiarities of this stage of his friend's ebriety was to fancy himself the intimate and associate of any one whose name he had ever heard mentioned.
“Ay, sir, them's words your father would never have uttered. I was with him in his first blaze. 'Moore,' says I, 'have n't you a pair of black breeches?'—he wore a pair of web 'tights' of a light pattern—What are you laughing at, sir?” cried he, sternly, and striking the table with his clenched knuckles, till the glasses all rang on it.
“I was laughing at my father's costume,” said Jack, who really told the truth; such a portrait of his parent's appearance being manifestly unlike anything he had ever imagined.
“And the worse manners yours, sir,” rejoined Magennis, rudely. “I' ll not suffer any man to laugh at an old friend—and—and—schoolfellow!”
It was with the very greatest difficulty that Jack could restrain himself at this peroration, which indignation—the same, probably, that creates poets—had suggested. He had, however, tact enough to preserve his gravity, whilst he assured his companion that no unfilial sentiment had any share in his thoughts.
“So far, so well,” said Magennis, who now helped himself to the whiskey, unadulterated by any water; “otherwise, sir, it's not Lieutenant Magennis, of the—9th Foot, would handle you on the ground to-morrow!”
“So, then, you've served, Mac? Why, you never broke that to me before!”
“Broke!” cried the other, with a voice shrill from passion, while he made an effort to rise from his chair, and sunk back again,—“broke; who dares to say I was broke? I left the scoundrels myself. I shook the dust off my feet after them. There never was a court-martial about it. Never—never!” To the deep crimson that suffused his face before, there now succeeded an almost death-like pallor, and Massingbred really felt terrified at the change. Some heart-rending recollection seemed suddenly to have cleared his brain, routing in an instant all the effects of intoxication, and restoring him to sobriety and sorrow together.
“Ay,” said he, in a low, broken voice, and still speaking to himself, “that finished me! I never held my head up again! Who could, after such a business? I came here, Mr. Massingbred,” continued he, but addressing his guest in a tone of deep respect,—“I came back here a ruined man, and not eight-and-twenty! You see me now, a dirty, drunken sot, not better dressed nor better mannered than the commonest fellow on the road, and yet I'm a gentleman born and bred, well nurtured, and well educated. I took a college degree and went into the army.” He paused, as if trying to gather courage to go on; the effort was more than he could accomplish, and, as the heavy tears stole slowly down his cheeks, the agony of the struggle might be detected. Half mechanically he seized the decanter of whiskey and poured the tumbler nearly full; but Jack good-humoredly stretched out his hand towards the glass, and said, “Don't drink, Mac; there's no head could stand it.”