Truth to tell, there are many reasons why this feast is a comic one.  In the first place, the description of mutton which they get is badly calculated to prejudice honest Paddy in favor of that food in general, it being’ well known that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the sacrifice falls upon disease, poverty, and extreme old age; or, if there be any manifestation of humanity in the selection, it is—­that while the tenderer sex is spared, the male one is in general certain to be made the victim, but never unless when he has been known to reach a most patriarchal length of years.  Then the suddenness of the act which converts a portion of the venerable patriarch into a component part of honest Paddy, is equally remarkable; for it generally happens that the animal now standing in a corner of the tent, will in about half an hour be undergoing the process of assimilation in his (Paddy’s) gastric region.  The elastic quality of the meat is indeed extraordinary, and such as, with the knowledge of that fact, does sometimes render Paddy’s treat of spoileen to his sweetheart an act of very questionable gallantry.  Be this as it may, there is scarcely anything in life richer than to witness a tent of spoileen eaters in full operation.  Tugging, pulling, dragging, tearing, swinging of the head from side to side, want of success, loss of temper, fatigue of jaw, recovery of good humor, and the wolfish rally, mingled with mock curses, loud laughter, shouting and singing, all going on together, are the ordinary characteristics of this most original banquet.

About the centre of the town stood one of those houses of entertainment which holds rank in such towns as a second rate inn.  On the day in question it was painfully overcrowded, and such was the hubbub of loud talk, laughter, singing, roaring, clattering of pewter pots, and thumping of tables, that it was almost impossible to hear or understand anything in the shape of conversation.  To this, however, there was one exception.  A small closet simply large enough to hold a table, and two short forms, opened from a room above stairs looking into the stable yard.  In this there was a good fire, at which sat two men, being, with a bed and small table, nearly as many as it was capable of holding with ease.

One of these was a stout, broad-shouldered person, a good deal knock-kneed, remarkably sallow in the complexion, with brows black and beetling.  He squinted, too, with one eye, and what between this circumstance, a remarkably sharp but hooked nose, and the lowering brows aforesaid, there was altogether about him a singular expression of acuteness and malignity.  In every sense he was a person against whom you would feel disposed to guard yourself, whether in the ordinary intercourse of life and its transactions, or still more in the secret workings of the darker and more vindictive passions.  He was what they call a down-looking man; that is, one who in conversation could never look you straight in the face, which fact, together with a habit of quivering observable in his upper lip, when any way agitated, gave unquestionable proof that his cowardice was equal to his malignity, as his treachery was to both.  His age might be about fifty, or, perhaps beyond it.