afflicted member, and, consequently that he was ruined for life. This
was a subsequent explanation--while the unhappy youth was extended
on the hearth-rug, protesting innocence, and also declaring that
his jaw-bone was fractured. The fall of the billet and the boy were
things simultaneous--and while my mother, in great alarm, inculcated
patience under suffering, and hinted at resignation, my father, in
return, swore awfully, that no man with a toe of treble its natural
dimensions, and scarlet as a soldiers jacket, had ever possessed
either of those Christian articles. My mother quoted the case of
Job--and my father begged to inquire if there was any authority to
prove that Job ever had the gout? In the mean time, the kitchen-boy
had gathered himself up and departed--and as he left the presence with
his hand pressed upon his cheek, loud were his lamentations. Constance
and I--nobody enjoyed the ridiculous more than she did--laughed
heartily, while the colonel resented this want of sympathy, by calling
us a brace of fools, and expressing his settled conviction, that were
he, the commander, hanged, we, the delinquents, would giggle at the
foot of the gallows.

Such was the state of affairs, when the entrance of the chief butler
harbingered other occurrences, and much more serious than Petereeine's
damaged jaw. Mick Kalligan had been in the "heavies" with my father,
and at Salamanca, had ridden the opening charge, side by side, with
him, greatly to the detriment of divers Frenchmen, and much to the
satisfaction of his present master. In executing this achievement,
Mick had been a considerable sufferer--his ribs having been invaded by
a red lancer of the guard--while a _chausseur-à-cheval_ had inserted
a lasting token of his affection across his right cheek, extremely
honorable, but by no means ornamental.