CHARLES O'MALLEY.


THE IRISH DRAGOON.


* * * * *


CHAPTER I.


THE DOCTOR'S TALE.[1]

"It is now some fifteen years since--if it wasn't for O'Shaughnessy's
wrinkles, I could not believe it five--we were quartered in Loughrea. There
were, besides our regiment, the Fiftieth and the Seventy-third, and a troop
or two of horse artillery, and the whole town was literally a barrack, and
as you may suppose, the pleasantest place imaginable. All the young ladies,
and indeed all those that had got their brevet some years before, came
flocking into the town, not knowing but the Devil might persuade a raw
ensign or so to marry some of them.

"Such dinner parties, such routs and balls, never were heard of west of
Athlone. The gayeties were incessant; and if good feeding, plenty of
claret, short whist, country dances, and kissing could have done the thing,
there wouldn't have been a bachelor with a red coat for six miles around.

[Footnote 1: I cannot permit the reader to fall into the same blunder,
with regard to the worthy "Maurice," as my friend Charles O'Malley has