other two burst into a roar of laughter, partly at their companion, and partly at me; whilst I, never changing a muscle, sighed, and "wished I was there agin!"

"Is your name as musical as that of the place you came from?" the Colonel inquired when he could articulate.

66

I plays no music but the thrump, sir," I innocently answered. "But my name is Jimmy Kelly O'Dwyer, at yer sarvice! An' I'm only three or four days in town. An' the devil's own town it is, when one's own relations is hardher upon us than those that's neither kith nor kin! Ogh! this Dublin is a murtherin' place entirely!"

I thereupon related my adventure with my cousins," and the loss of my money and letters of recommendation, with all the simplicity I could assume, and all the humour I could throw into the narrative; and, though my auditors were convulsed with laughter, I kept up the even detail of my mishap, quite unmoved, as if it were all too serious an affair for me to laugh at.

"Hem!" coughed the baronet, preliminary

to a question he tried to ask, with great seriousness. "Hem! So you came to town in expectation of getting into service, did you?"

"Bedad, I did, sir," I briskly responded. "An' 't is myself that 'ud be glad to fall into a good one. An' a very good boy I would

be!"

"Ah! but your fine letters of recommendation-" sympathized the Captain, mighty goodnaturedly" what will you do for them?"

"Ah, yes! sir," I said, and sighed profoundly, "my fine letthers of ricommindation, shure inuff! Nothin' could bait the Jography of thim! There was one from the Reverend Mr. Clifford; three from Mr. Edward Saint George, Esquire, of Castle Lindon; an' one from my parish priest, Father Dillon."

"If the last is as great an old rogue as priests in general are," observed the Colonel, you have no loss of his letters, Jim."

"Oh Lard!" I exclaimed, and lifting up my hands and eyes in horror, "see how he spaiks of the clargy! Not denyin'," I added, looking in the Colonel's face with much innocence,

"but that he may be as great a rogue as a soljer, an' that is sayin' inuff."

The laugh now turned against the officers, and I had the pleasure to see that I was gaining ground with the young baronet.

66

My neat-going chap!" cried the Colonel, "I smoke you! You are not nearly the Johnny Raw you pretend."

"You may give him up," cried Sir Charles. "He knows you!-I say, Jim, have you left the girls in that unpronounceable place you came from quite broken-hearted after you?"

"Is it me? sir," I answered, and making a motion with my hands, as if I were pushing something away from me: "I has nothin' to say to the likes of thim at all, at all! For, if ye have a heart in yer body, they 'll invaigle it out o' ye; if ye have a bit of a saicret in the corner o' yer mind, they'll never stop till they pick it out o' ye; if ye have a shillin' in yer pocket, they'll shurely shell it out o' ye; an' oh, mavrone! yer a lucky boy intirely, if they wont knock the seven sinses out o' ye, into the bargain."

It was admitted on all hands that I knew

the turnings and windings of the sex, and that I described their arts to the life! One of the officers observed that I would be quite an acquisition to a wild young man in such a place as Dublin.

"I am quite of that opinion," said Sir Charles. "I have just been thinking that I shall make him my Mentor.-Well, Jim, my lad, what can you do, if I hire you?"

"Everything! yer honour," I answered at

once.

"Ay-ay!" said he, smiling good humouredly, " 'you are like all Irishmen. You say

you can do everything, and can do nothing!" 'Augh! yer honour," cried I, and drawing myself up with great dignity, "ye know nothin' at all of the Irish kar-racthur! Now, what's the raison an Irishman wont be taught a thrade like an English- or a Scotch-man?

"Because he's so flighty," said the baronet. "Because he's so lazy," said the colonel. "Because he's not inclined for anything good," added the Captain.

"All out!" cried I, and snapping my fingers triumphantly. "Bekaise all thrades are

at his fingers' inds, an' he need n't larn from man what nathur has already taught him! So, yer honour (to Sir Charles), though I was n't taught the thrade of a sarvent, never fear, but I'll slip into it, an' that it will fit me as tight as if it was made for me on purpose!"

66

My smart fellow," cried the Baronet, slapping me on the shoulder, "you are mine! Inquire for Sir Charles Welde's servant at yonder tavern, and stay with him until I am returning to town."