A dish of fried eggs-and-bacon was ordered from a hideous old wench that came to serve us, in place of the lovely creature I had expected to see; and the Captain, laughing, said, ’Well, our meal is a frugal one, but a soldier has many a time a worse:’  and, taking off his hat, sword-belt, and gloves, with great ceremony, he sat down to eat.  I would not be behindhand with him in politeness, and put my weapon securely on the old chest of drawers where his was laid.

The hideous old woman before mentioned brought us in a pot of very sour wine, at which and at her ugliness I felt a considerable ill-humour.

‘Where’s the beauty you promised me?’ said I, as soon as the old hag had left the room.

‘Bah!’ said he, laughing, and looking hard at me:  ’it was my joke.  I was tired, and did not care to go farther.  There’s no prettier woman here than that.  If she won’t suit your fancy, my friend, you must wait a while.’

This increased my ill-humour.

‘Upon my word, sir,’ said I sternly, ’I think you have acted very coolly!’

‘I have acted as I think fit!’ replied the captain.

‘Sir,’ said I, ‘I’m a British officer!’

‘It’s a lie!’ roared the other, ’you’re a deserter!  You’re an impostor, sir; I have known you for such these three hours.  I suspected you yesterday.  My men heard of a man escaping from Warburg, and I thought you were the man.  Your lies and folly have confirmed me.  You pretend to carry despatches to a general who has been dead these ten months:  you have an uncle who is an ambassador, and whose name forsooth you don’t know.  Will you join and take the bounty, sir; or will you be given up?’

‘Neither!’ said I, springing at him like a tiger.  But, agile as I was, he was equally on his guard.  He took two pistols out of his pocket, fired one off, and said, from the other end of the table where he stood dodging me, as it were,—­

‘Advance a step, and I send this bullet into your brains!’ In another minute the door was flung open, and the two sergeants entered, armed with musket and bayonet to aid their comrade.

The game was up.  I flung down a knife with which I had armed myself; for the old hag on bringing in the wine had removed my sword.

‘I volunteer,’ said I.

‘That’s my good fellow.  What name shall I put on my list?’

‘Write Redmond Barry of Bally Barry,’ said I haughtily; ’a descendant of the Irish kings!’

‘I was once with the Irish brigade, Roche’s,’ said the recruiter, sneering, ’trying if I could get any likely fellows among the few countrymen of yours that are in the brigade, and there was scarcely one of them that was not descended from the kings of Ireland.’

‘Sir,’ said I, ‘king or not, I am a gentleman, as you can see.’

‘Oh! you will find plenty more in our corps,’ answered the Captain, still in the sneering mood.  ’Give up your papers, Mr. Gentleman, and let us see who you really are.’