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of Johannisberg, a wine grown, if I may use that expression, by the Prince Metternich, and sent by that sovereign to me as a présent." The wine in due time arrived, and was drank with gusto by the quartette at supper. Conversation began to flow more freely, and each bore on his visage the impress of content. The time stole over with silken wing, nor was it till the garrison clock had struck one that the De Bohuns rose to depart. The father was about to lay hold of Sommerton's hand, and say, farewell, when the colonel said.

"I'll go with you to the door, and see what kind of weather blows."

When they had passed the first turning in the long corridor that ran through the centre of the building, the well-timed notes of a vocalist were distinctly audible. The door of the mess-room was on ajar, and, from the partial opening, a few straggling rays of light shone forth making the "darkness visible." They issued from two dim and distant lamps which claimed the pretensions of lighting the long and gloomy passage.

"A disreputable time this for gentlemen to be still at their wine, is it not, captain?" said Sommerton, as he approximated the door, and then entered, bidding his companions follow. The colonel was in a jovial humour; he silently took a chair till the end of the

song.

Some six or seven officers sat by the table; a number of empty bottles stood in the corner; the festive board was littered with the fragments of dessert; coffee was before them; two or three were smoking their cigars, the puffs from which were ascending in fantastic curls, and melting into thin air. Not one gave outward evidence of discomfort. The party consisted of men who, to use a slang epithet, were fast men—men, too, on whose brains old port, rum-punch, and whisky-toddy, fell powerless-men who declared they could sober themselves with cold without; whose elysiums were to sit and drain their cups till morning, and boast of never falling under the table. They rejoiced in belonging to a class denominated good fellows; who fancy they are enemies to none but themselves, and whose

lives are spent in accordance with the doctrine of Sardanapalus, of old. The singer had been voted to the chair, and a chairman he was who fully discharged his trust. His red-gilled, benign countenance, and portly person, evinced the correctness of their election of him to that exalted position. The words of the doctor's song ran as follows:

SONG.

Joy shall be ours this merry night,

Let Friendship's cup then circle fast;
Life's rosy hours are quick in flight,
And moments brightest hurry past
Then let us now-we can be gay-
Dispel the shades of Care afar;
When morning breaks, we in array
Must join the crimson ranks of war!

Brave comrades, may we meet again,

More songs to sing, more cups to drain!

Joy shall be ours this merry night,

Nor craven fears the heart shall gloom,

For if we fall in Freedom's fight

The grave of Glory is our tomb!
Country, altars, homes defending,

Who would not raise the arm to save?
Heedless stay when danger's pending;
Sooner we'll seek a soldier's grave!

Brave comrades, may we meet again,
More songs to sing, more cups to drain!

Joy shall be ours this merry night,
Tho' Memory's glance perforce will turn
To happy scenes of past delight-

To those we love-to some who're gone!
To those we love!-to them now pour

One round-the nectar's sweetest draught;
And if we never see them more,

Their healths to-night are warmly quaffed!

Brave comrades, may we meet again,

More songs to sing, more cups to drain!

When the burden of the song, in which the comrades had joined in hearty chorus, had died into an echo, M'Leech was enthusiastically cheered.

"Bravo! bravissimo !" made the hall ring in the lusty enunciation of commendatory epithets. The colonel was highly amused at the scene, and when he beheld his chirurgical friend give a hearty pull at the smoking contents of the huge goblet before him, he facetiously observed:

"You seem, doctor, to be reversing the order of things-to be imbibing instead of emitting pleno rivo."

"Yes, colonel; and in the same reversion of practice, preventing instead of inducing the deliquium animi," smilingly replied M'Leech,

as he with the spoon drove round in quick rotation the slice of lemon in his toddy.

"I fear, colonel," said a bush-whiskered captain, with bloated cheeks, and port-wine hued countenance, "that our worthy Esculapius has, in his classical erudition, forgotten the axiom of Seneca, 'Ebrietas est voluntaria insania.""

"And the words of old Horace

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said a hirsute lieutenant, who wished to prove he had not entirely forgot his Etonian lessons.

After a moment's pause, and looking at the hirsute gentleman spoken of above, the doctor exclaimed,

"I will say with Iago, 'Come, lieutenant, I have a stoop of wine;" at the same time pushing the decanter towards the party addressed.

"And I may reply with Cassio, 'Not tonight, good Iago; I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking; I could well wish

VOL. I.

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