“‘Did you hear lately from y’er family:’ says his lordship to me.
“‘Arrah! the devil a scrape I had from Ireland these nine months,’ says I.
“‘I see what y’er lookin’ at,’ says he, as he caught me throwin’ a sheep’s eye over at a card-table in the corner—‘are you for a rubber, Peter, to help us to put in the evening?’
“‘Feaks! my lord,’ says I, ‘I’d be afeard, as I’m rather out of practice.’
“‘Make it five an’ ten,’ says he; ‘y’er the divil at that, no doubt, as the boy said his mother was at the praying. Come, Ned,’ says he, ‘down with y’er dust, and we’ll cut for who’ll have Peter Grotty; and by my soul, up comes a red knave. ‘By the powers of pewter, Peter, ye’er my own!’ says my lord.
“‘Oh, then, y’er welcome to him, if he was better,’ says Sir Thomas. And he seemed cross at losing me.
“Well—my Lord desired Ned Packenham to make us a tumbler each—and down we sit;—myself as stiff as a new-made quartermaster, although, if God’s truth was told, I hadn’t a skurrick in my pocket to mark the game with.
“‘Here’s luck!’ says his lordship, finishin’ his tumbler at a pull. I forgot to mention, that Sir Thomas stuck to the sherry, and Ned Packenham helped himself to a sketch of brandy in the bottom of a glass, and took it nate, without water.
“Well, I cuts a black deuce, so the dale was mine; and up turns the ace of hearts afterwards. His lordship winked his left eye when he saw it. ‘Be the powers,’ says his lordship, ‘your mother must have been in’ the yeomen, or she’d never have had such a son! Many a Sunday ye play’d cards upon a tombstone instead of goin’ to mass; God forgive ye for the same, Peter!”’
“Colonel Burn wants Lieutenant Crotty immediately,” said a mess waiter from the door.