the bell-rope, said, “With your leave, Blake, we’ll have the ‘dew’ now,”
“Good claret-no better,” said another: “but it sits mighty cold on the stomach.”
“There’s nothing like the groceries, after all—eh, Sir George?” said an old Galway squire to the English General, who acceded to the fact, which he understood in a very different sense.
“Oh, punch, you are my darlin’,” hummed another, as a large square half-gallon decanter of whisky was placed on the table—the various decanters of wine being now ignominiously sent down to the end of the board, without any evidence of regret on any face, save Sir George Dashwood’s, who mixed his tumbler with a very rebellious conscience.
Whatever were the noise and clamour of the company before, they were nothing to what now ensued. As one party were discussing the approaching contest, another was planing a steeplechase; while two individuals, unhappily removed from each other the entire length of the table, were what is called “challenging each other’s effects,” in a very remarkable manner, the process so styled being an exchange of property, when each party setting an imaginary value upon some article, barters it for another, the amount of boot paid and received being determined by a third person, who is the umpire. Thus a gold breast-pin was swapped, as the phrase is, against a horse; then a pair of boots, then a Kerry bull, &c., every imaginable species of property coming into the market. Sometimes, as matters of very dubious value turned up, great laughter was the result. In this very national pastime a Mr. Miles Redkin, a noted fire-eater of the West, was a great proficient, and, it is said, once so completely succeeded in despoiling an uninitiated hand, that after winning in succession his horse, gig, harness, &., he proceeded, seriatum, to his watch, ring, clothes, and portmanteau, and actually concluded by winning all he possessed, and kindly lent him a card-cloth to cover him on, his way to the hotel. His success on the present occasion was considerable, and his spirits proportionate, The decanter had thrice been replenished, and the flushed faces and thickened utterance of the guests evinced that from the cold properties of the claret there was but little to dread. As for Mr. Bodkin, his manner was incapable of any higher flight, when under the influence of whisky, from what it evinced on common occasions; and, as he sat at the end of the table, fronting Mr. Blake, he assumed all the dignity of the ruler of the feast, with an energy no one seemed disposed to question. In answer to some observations of Sir George, he was led into something like an oration upon the peculiar excellences of his native country, which ended in a declaration that there was nothing like Galway.
“Why don’t you give us a song, Miles? and maybe the General would learn more from it than all your speech-making.”
“To be sure,” cried out several voices together; “to be sure: let us hear the ‘Man for Galway.’”
Sir George having joined most warmly in the request, Mr. Bodkin filled up his glass to the brim, bespoke a chorus to his chant, and, clearing his voice with deep hem, began the following ditty, to the