“Before I was pris’ner five minutes, he sends an aidi-camp hot-foot—well, up I comes—for there was no use, you know, resistin’. At first he looked red-pepper at me: ‘Corp’lar Mulrooney,’ says he—and how the dickens he med my name out, I nivir could lam—‘Mulrooney,’ says he, ‘for once in ye’r life, tell truth, and shame the divil.—How many thousand strong are ye?’ ‘Twenty-five thousand,’ says I, strivin’ to dacave him. ‘Bad luck to the liars!’ says he. ‘Amen,’ says I, just givin’ the word back to him. ‘Arrah—come,’ says he, ‘don’t be makin’ a Judy Fitzsummon’s mother of ye’rself, but tell the truth, Mulrooney, and I’ll make a man of ye: an’ if ye don’t’—sw’aring an oath that I now disremimber, because it was in Frinch—‘I’ll blow the contents of this pistol thro’ your scull,’ pulling out one with a barrel like a blunderbuss. Well, I was rather scared; but, thinks I, there’s nothin’ like being bould. ‘Fire away,’ says I, ‘an’ put ye’r information in ye’r pocket afterwards; for it’s all ye’ll get from me.’ Bonypart looked bothered: ‘Be gogstay,” says he, to the aidicamp, ‘that’s cliver of the corp’lar. Let him off,’ says he; ‘an’ if there’s a drain of spirits in the bottle, give it to him, the crature, for the day’s hot.’ Wid that, he pulls out a thirty-shillin’ note. ‘Divil blister the rap I have more, or ye should have it,’ says he, shakes me dacently by the han’, and sends me clane back. ‘Pon me soul! Boney’s not a bad man, after all.”
The sergeant’s interview with Napoleon had been listened to with great attention; and at the production of the pistol of blunderbuss calibre, the recruits actually turned pale. The Israelite alone exhibited symptoms of incredulity, but what could be expected from an unbeliever? As to Mark Antony, he laughed outright;—however, that was an effect which some of the bloodiest exploits of the gallant sergeant frequently produced upon his auditory, and accordingly, he, “good easy man,” passed it by unnoticed. The symposium promised to terminate in harmony and peace, alas! how delusory that promise proved!
CHAPTER X. FRIENDS MUST PART
“Hostess.—Here’s a goodly tumult!—I’ll forswear keeping house, afore I’ll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now—” Shakspeare.
“ There’s a ery and a shout,
And a deuce of a rout,
And nobody seems to know what it’s about.”
Thomas Ingoldsby.