Now the head stable boy, Mike O'Donelly by name, was a scion of the noblest Bourbon race. His father was an exile, who spoke the language with a strong foreign accent, and drove a fish cart—which also had a pronounced accent, reputed deadly up to fifty yards with a favourable wind.
"Foine frish hirrings—foive for sixpince!" was the way he said it. This proved to demonstration that he came from a far land, and was the descendant of kings. When taxed directly with being the heir to a crown, he did not deny it, but said, "Yus, Masther Smith, wanst I had a crown, but I lost it. 'Twas the Red Lion, bad scran to ut, that did the deed!"
Now this was evidently only a picturesque and regal way of referring to the bloody revolution by which King Michael O'Donowitch had been dethroned and reduced to driving a fish-cart—the old, old story, doubtless, of royal license and popular ingratitude. But there was no such romantic mystery about Peter Greg. He was simply junior stable boy, and his father was general utility man—or, as it was more generally called, "odd man," about the estate of Windy Standard. Peter occupied most of his time in keeping one eye on his work and the other on his father, who, on general utility principles, "welted" him every time that he caught him. This exercise, and his other occupation of perpetual fisticuffs with Prince Mike O'Donelly, had so developed his muscles and trained his mind, that he could lick any other two boys of his size in the parish. He said so himself, and he usually had at least one black eye to show for it. So no one contradicted him, and, indeed, who had a better right to know?
Prince Michael O'Donowitch (the improvement in style was Sammy Carter's) put the matter differently. He said, "I can lick Peter Greg till he can't stand" ("shtand" was how the royal exile pronounced it), "but Peter an' me can knock the stuffin' out of any half-dozen spalpeens in this dirthy counthry."
Both Mike and Peter received commissions in the army at the same moment. The ceremony took place at the foot of the great hay mow at the back of the stable yard. In view of his noble ancestry, Prince Michael O'Donowitch was made a major-general, and Peter a lieutenant of marines. The newly appointed officers instantly clinched, fell headlong, rolled over and over one another, pommelled each other's heads, bit, scratched, and kicked till the hay and straw flew in all directions.
When the dust finally cleared away, Peter was found sitting astride of Prince Michael, and shouting, "Are you the general-major, or am I?"
Then when they had risen to their feet and dusted themselves, it was found that the distinguished officers had exchanged commissions, and that Peter Greg had become major-general, while Prince Michael O'Donowitch was lieutenant of marines, with a new and promising black eye!
"GENERALS OF DIVISION, EQUAL IN RANK."
But at the first drill, upon General Peter issuing some complicated order, such as "Attention! eyes right!" Lieutenant O'Donowitch remarked, "Me eyes is as roight as yours, ye dirthy baste av a Scotchy!" Whereupon, as the result of another appeal to arms, the former judgment was reversed, and Prince Michael regained his commission at the price of another black eye. Indeed he would have had three, but for the fact that the number of his eyes was somewhat strictly limited to two.