So whatever the quantity may have been, he drank it too, and grew more moody; and was suddenly called up from the black abyss by the entrance of little Puddock, rosy and triumphant, from the ball.

’Ha!  Puddock!  Then, the fun’s over.  I’m glad to see you.  I’ve been tete-a-tete with my shadow—­cursed bad company, Puddock.  Where’s Cluffe?’

‘Gone home, I believe.’

’So much the better.  You know Cluffe better than I, and there’s a secret about him I never could find out. You have, maybe?’

‘What’s that?’ lisped Puddock.

‘What the deuce Cluffe’s good for.’

‘Oh! tut!  We all know Cluffe’s a very good fellow.’

Devereux looked from under his finely pencilled brows with a sad sort of smile at good little Puddock.

‘Puddock,’ says he, ’I’d like to have you write my epitaph.

Puddock looked at him with his round eyes a little puzzled, and then he said—­

’You think, maybe, I’ve a turn for making verses; and you think also I like you, and there you’re quite right.’

Devereux laughed, but kindly, and shook the fat little hand he proffered.

’I wish I were like you, Puddock.  We’ve the knowledge of good and evil between us.  The knowledge of good is all yours:  you see nothing but the good that men have; you see it—­and, I dare say, truly—­where I can’t.  The darker knowledge is mine.’

Puddock, who thought he thoroughly understood King John, Shylock, and Richard III., was a good deal taken aback by Devereux’s estimate of his penetration.

‘Well, I don’t think you know me, Devereux,’ resumed he with a thoughtful lisp.  ’I’m much mistaken, or I could sound the depths of a villain’s soul as well as most men.’

‘And if you did you’d find it full of noble qualities,’ said Dick Devereux.  ‘What book is that?’

‘The tragical history of Doctor Faustus,’ answered Puddock.  ’I left it here more than a week ago.  Have you read it?’

’Faith, Puddock, I forgot it!  Let’s see what ‘tis like,’ said Devereux.  ‘Hey day!’ And he read—­

  ’Now, Faustus, let thine eyes with horror stare
  Into that vast perpetual torture-house;
  There are the furies tossing damned souls
  On burning forks; their bodies boil in lead;
  There are live quarters broiling on the coals
  That ne’er can die; this ever-burning chair
  Is for o’er-tortured souls to rest them in;
  These that are fed with sops of flaming fire
  Were gluttons, and loved only delicates,
  And laughed to see the poor starve at their gates.

’Tailors! by Jupiter!  Serve’em right, the rogues.  Tailors lining upon ragou royal, Spanish olea, Puddock—­fat livers, and green morels in the Phoenix, the scoundrels, and laughing to see poor gentlemen of the Royal Irish Artillery starving at their gates—­hang ’em.’

‘Well! well!  Listen to the Good Angel,’ said Puddock, taking up the book and declaiming his best—­