I had no money, as I said, and was sitting very disconsolately over a platter of rancid bacon and mouldy biscuit, which was served to us at mess, when it came to my turn to be helped to drink, and I was served, like the rest, with a dirty tin noggin, containing somewhat more than half a pint of rum-and-water.  The beaker was so greasy and filthy that I could not help turning round to the messman and saying, ‘Fellow, get me a glass!’ At which all the wretches round about me burst into a roar of laughter, the very loudest among them being, of course, Mr. Toole.  ’Get the gentleman a towel for his hands, and serve him a basin of turtle-soup,’ roared the monster, who was sitting, or rather squatting, on the deck opposite me; and as he spoke he suddenly seized my beaker of grog and emptied it, in the midst of another burst of applause.

’If you want to vex him, ax him about his wife the washerwoman, who Bates him,’ here whispered in my ear another worthy, a retired link-boy, who, disgusted with his profession, had adopted the military life.

‘Is it a towel of your wife’s washing, Mr. Toole?’ said I.  ’I’m told she wiped your face often with one.’

’Ax him why he wouldn’t see her yesterday, when she came to the ship,’ continued the link-boy.  And so I put to him some other foolish jokes about soapsuds, henpecking, and flat-irons, which set the man into a fury, and succeeded in raising a quarrel between us.  We should have fallen to at once, but a couple of grinning marines, who kept watch at the door, for fear we should repent of our bargain and have a fancy to escape, came forward and interposed between us with fixed bayonets; but the sergeant coming down the ladder, and hearing the dispute, condescended to say that we might fight it out like men with fistes if we chose, and that the fore-deck should be free to us for that purpose.  But the use of fistes, as the Englishman called them, was not then general in Ireland, and it was agreed that we should have a pair of cudgels; with one of which weapons I finished the fellow in four minutes, giving him a thump across his stupid sconce which laid him lifeless on the deck, and not receiving myself a single hurt of consequence.

This victory over the cock of the vile dunghill obtained me respect among the wretches of whom I formed part, and served to set up my spirits, which otherwise were flagging; and my position was speedily made more bearable by the arrival on board our ship of an old friend.  This was no other than my second in the fatal duel which had sent me thus early out into the world, Captain Fagan.  There was a young nobleman who had a company in our regiment (Gale’s foot), and who, preferring the delights of the Mall and the clubs to the dangers of a rough campaign, had given Fagan the opportunity of an exchange; which, as the latter had no fortune but his sword, he was glad to make.  The sergeant was putting us through our exercise on deck (the seamen