“It’s true. Divil a one of me could get away, good nor bad?”
“Any thing wrong in the returns?” inquired the grenadier.
“Oh, sorra thing; for he gave us the height of applause.”
“Did the aide-de-camp tell you so?” asked a listener.
“What aide-de-camp?—Don’t I tell ye it was himself?” observed Lieutenant Crotty.
“Himself? Arrah—the divil an eye ye laid upon him, unless ye happened to see him lighting off his horse,” observed Captain Philbin.
Peter Crotty answered this remark by a look of silent contempt.
“He’s in for it,” whispered my next neighbour, softly. “I’ll back him for a regular rigmarole of lies against any man in the Peninsula. But we must humour him.——“Well, Peter, and was his lordship commonly civil?”
“A pleasanter-spoken man I never was in company with,” was the reply.
“And he did seem pleased with our morning-state?—The aide-decamp told you that?”