“Eh? Oh I there's nothing for me; no marked feature, nothing strong, nothing characteristic. That has been through life my greatest, my very highest ambition,—that no man should ever detect, by anything in my manner, my dress, or my style of conversation, that I was not John Nokes or Peter Styles. You 'll meet me at a dinner party, Tom; you 'll converse with me, drink with me; we'll sit the evening together, grow intimate, perhaps you 'll borrow fifty pounds of me; and yet I 'd wager another, you'd never guess that I rode a hippopotamus across the Ganges after tiffin one day, to pay my respects to the Governor-Greneral. That, let me tell you, Tom, is the very proudest boast a man can make. Do you see that scar? It looks nothing now. That was a bite from a ferocious boa: the villain got into my room before breakfast; he had eaten my chokeedar, a fellow I was very fond of—”
“Ah, I remember you mentioned that to me. And now to come back to my dull story, to which, I assure you, however dramatic you may deem it, I 'd prefer adding an act or so before it comes before the world. I intend to leave this to-morrow.”
“No, no; you mustn't think of it yet awhile. Why, my dear fellow, you 've a hundred pounds; only think of that! Twenty will bring you to Paris; less, if you choose. I once travelled from Glugdamuck to the Ghauts of Bunderamud for half a rupee; put my elephants on three biscuits a day; explained to them in Hindostanee—a most expressive language—that our provisions had fallen short; that on our arrival all arrears of grub should be made up. They tossed up their trunks thus in token of assent, and on we marched. Well, when we came to Helgie, there was no water—”
“Very true,” interrupted I, half in despair at the torrent of story-telling I had got involved in. “But you forget I have neither elephants, nor camels, nor coolies, nor chokeedars; I'm a mere adventurer, with, except yourself, not a friend in the world.”
“Then why not join us?” cried the ever ready captain. “We are to have our orders for foreign service in a few weeks; you 've only to volunteer; you 've money enough to buy your kit. When you 're fairly in, it 's only writing to your brother. Besides, something always turns up; that 's my philosophy. I rarely want anything I don't find means to obtain, somehow or other.”
“No,” said I, resolutely, “I will never join the service of a country which has inflicted such foul wrong on my native land.”
“All stuff and nonsense!” cried Bubbleton. “Who cares the deuce of clubs about politics? When you 're my age, you 'll find that if you 're not making something of politics, they 'll make very little of you. I 'd as soon sell figs for my grocer or snuff for my tobacconist as I 'd bother my head governing the kingdom for Billy Pitt. He 's paid for it,—that's his business, not mine. No, no, my boy; join us,—you shall be 'Burke of Ours!' We 'll have a glorious campaign among the Yankees. I 'll teach you the Seneca language, and we 'll have a ramble through the Indian settlements. Meanwhile you dine to-day at the mess; to-morrow we picnic at the Dargle; next day we—What the deuce is next day to be? Oh yes! next day we all dine with you. Nothing stiff or formal,—a snug, quiet thing for sixteen; I'll manage it all.”
Here was an argument there was no resisting; so I complied at once, comforting myself with a silent vow, come what might, I 'd leave Ireland the day after my dinner party.
Under whatever guise—with what history of my rank, wealth, and family influence—Bubbleton thought proper to present me to his brother officers, I cannot say; but nothing could possibly be more kind, or even more cordial, than their reception of me. And although I had some difficulty in replying to questions put under mistaken notions of my position and intentions, I readily followed, as far as I was able, the line suggested by my imaginative friend, whose representations, I suspected, would be received with a suitable limitation by his old associates.
There is, perhaps, no species of society so striking and so captivating to the young man entering on life as that of a military mess. The easy, well-bred intimacy, that never degenerates into undue familiarity; the good-humored, playful raillery, that never verges on coarseness or severity; the happy blending of old men's wisdom and young men's buoyancy,—are all very attractive features of social intercourse, even independently of the stronger interest that invests the companionship of men whose career is arms. I felt this, and enjoyed it too; not the less pleasantly that I discovered no evidence of that violent partisan feeling I had been led to believe was the distinguishing mark of the Royalist soldier. If by chance any allusion was made to the troubles of the period, it was invariably done rather in a tone of respect for mistaken and ill directed political views, than in reprehension of disloyalty and rebellion; and when I heard the dispassionate opinions and listened to the mild counsels of these men, whom I had always believed to be the veriest tyrants and oppressors, I could scarcely credit my own senses, so utterly opposed were my impressions and my experience. One only of the party evinced an opposite feeling. He was a pale, thin, rather handsome man, of about five and twenty, who had lately joined them from a dragoon regiment, and who by sundry little innuendoes, was ever bringing uppermost the preference he evinced for his former service, and his ardent desire to be back again in the cavalry.