'"Oh!" said I gaily, "the man that is born to be hanged will never be shot."

'"Go your way, then," said he.

'"You'd better let me have that one-and-twenty shillings smart you used to pay, to drink your long life, and a healthy thirst for learning to the rising generation of Corkonians."

'If I hadn't ducked my head at the moment, I mightn't be here to tell you. He had levelled "lamb and salad," as he used to call his slapper—the superannuated bolt of an outhouse—at the place where my brains ought to have been. The good man had a temper of his own.'

'Is he no more?'

'These ten years. So is my mother, and if I ever go back to Ireland again, one of the businesses that will take me there is to put a stone over their graves. The regiment which I joined was one of the medium cavalry, and my knowledge of saddlery stood me in good stead. Because of it I got promoted, which was not an ordinary piece of luck, for the corps was an English one, and a Paddy had little chance of the stripes anywhere except on his back. It was in the Tangiers Horse I learned to be a rebel and a democrat. To see young spooneys, fresh from their mother's apron-strings, spooneys not able to grow a beard, hemming and hawing on a parade-ground, and strutting about in command of old soldiers that were black with powder before they were born! It sickened me, I tell you Pshaw! All men are equal.'

'As all the fingers of our hand are of the same length,' quietly observed O'Hara.

The democratic dragoon did not regard the interruption, but continued:

'It was during the Repeal Agitation I enlisted, and our regiment never left the shores of England. We moved about from Manchester to Sheffield, and from Sheffield to York, but never too far from Ireland. I watched the excitement as it grew, and waited the moment till it would come to blows. I was an Irishman before I was a soldier, thought I, and I'll never wear a sabre against my country. I went to the colonel and demanded my discharge. I had saved enough in the saddlery workshop to pay for it.

'"Can't give any men their discharge now, especially a useful man like you."