believe; do try this. Isn't it good?" And in the simplest way in the
world I puffed a volume into his face. "I see you like it," said I, so
coolly, that the men--and I do believe the horses--burst out laughing.

He started back--choking almost, and recovered himself only to vent such
a storm of oaths and curses that I was compelled to request Capt.
Rawdon (the captain on duty) to take note of his lordship's words; and
unluckily could not help adding a question which settled my business.
"You were good enough," I said, "to ask me, my lord, from what
blackguard I got my pipe; might I ask from what blackguard you learned
your language?"

This was quite enough. Had I said, "from what GENTLEMAN did your
lordship learn your language?" the point would have been quite as good,
and my Lord Martingale would have suffered in my place: as it was, I
was so strongly recommended to sell out by his Royal Highness the
Commander-in-Chief, that, being of a good-natured disposition, never
knowing how to refuse a friend, I at once threw up my hopes of military
distinction and retired into civil life.

My lord was kind enough to meet me afterwards in a field in the Glanmire
Road, where he put a ball into my leg. This I returned to him some years
later with about twenty-three others--black ones--when he came to be
balloted for at a club of which I have the honor to be a member.

Thus by the indulgence of a simple and harmless propensity,--of a
propensity which can inflict an injury upon no person or thing except
the coat and the person of him who indulges in it,--of a custom honored
and observed in almost all the nations of the world,--of a custom which,
far from leading a man into any wickedness or dissipation to which