in their bosoms for the River Shannon to take a meander through, for such a pair of salted maws they never had in their lives before.

As soon as the table was cleared, a brace of decanters, with very suspicious-looking contents, was placed before their host, who seemed to think the tipple demanded an apology.

'Sorry I can't say much for the wine, gents.,' said he; but good wine's very hard to be got. I bought it for port and sherry; so we'll take it for granted that it's genuine, and drink it for want of better,' and he filled his glass, and passed the decanters on. The sherry was execrable; the port was worse. Sir Humphrey Davy would have spent a day in analyzing them before he could detect a thimbleful of wine in the composition of either of them; but what were they to do, having two such reasons, external and internal, for drinking whatever came before them. A longing recollection seized both the guests at the same moment, and made their mouths water, for they could not but think what a difference lay between the fluid before them and the delicious beverage with which Malachi, in his capacity of gamekeeper, had supplied them; nay, they could read the thought in the faces of each other; and, as they read, they gathered courage to hint their opinions on the subject.

Hem! ahem!' quoth Lieutenant Meredith, you'll excuse me for inquiring the name of that liqueur you carry in the flask. By Jove! we must have some of it at our mess, for I don't know a more excellent thing in its way; but I forget how you called it.'

Is it the potheen you mean?' inquired their host, with an expression of amazement. 'Sure, you don't mean to say you'd be so vulgar as to drink punch?' demanded Malachi, still more surprised than before. Faith! maybe you'd like a jug now; but I didn't like to mention it for fear of offending you. However, if you've no objection, I'll get up the materials; but remember, it wasn't I that proposed it.'

Oh, by all means!' exclaimed the delighted militaires, rubbing their hands with ecstasy at the mere idea of the luxury that awaited them, and not at all able to understand the virtuous scruples of their entertainer. Nothing could exceed the glad alacrity with which Malachi acceded to their wishes; hot water, sugar, and a bottle, were placed on the table as it were by magic, flanked by a trio of tumblers, accompanied by glasses to correspond; one of which was seized by the host, and one each by his guests.

4

Do you know how to mix it, though?' demanded Malachi, recollecting himself.

'Why, no,' replied Lister; but we'll follow your example.'

Bedad, then, if you do,' responded their model, with a dry smile, ye'll do well. Here goes, any how-first sugar, three lumps; now water, do you see, halfway up exactly-capital !-you'll be able to teach the whole mess to-morrow or next day. Now, in with the potheen to the very brim. And now, gentlemen, your healths, and so forth.'

Oh, with what a relish they emptied their glasses, and smacked their lips! It was a new era in their lives-an era never to be forgotten! Their thirst was half-melted already; their apprehensions sweetly subsiding, their pleasure rapidly tending to a climax, when Malachi rose, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.

Eh!' exclaimed the officers, with a perplexed stare.

'Don't be alarmed, pray,' said Malachi; it is only an old custom

always understood, that as soon as the hot water comes in, the room's locked up for the night, for fear of accidents, as a matter of course. So now we'll make ourselves snug.'

'But, pardon me,' stammered Meredith; you know we must be in barracks to-night. Daren't miss parade in the morning if our lives depended on it.'

'Pshaw!' interposed their host. Put it out of your heads at once. I'll take no offence, as you seem to be ignorant of our ways; but I'll thank you not to mention it again.'

'But, my dear sir,' remonstrated the astounded officer, the consequence will be, that we 'll have to stand a court-martial. I assure you I don't exaggerate.'

Sorry for it,' was the cool reply; but old customs must be kept up, you know. What hour must you be at parade, may I ask?'

Nine o'clock precisely; and old Courtenay 's as sharp as a needle.' Oh, well; we can manage it easily,' said Malachi. Never fear, my boys. I'll drive you over in my own carriage,-'pon my honour I will. You shall be there to the moment, and I'll explain the whole thing to the Colonel.'

It was useless to murmur. The thing itself wasn't so very unreasonable. They reflected that if their brother-officers got a sight of the man they had to deal with, it would greatly help the excuse that was to be made for their transgression, and this in itself would be no small object. Moreover, they were tired after the day's work, and the drink was more than commonly seductive. So the result of all these considerations was that they resigned themselves to their fate, and prepared to make a night of it.

Next morning there was a direful hubbub in Loughrea barracks, no tidings could be heard of their missing brethren, and the fifty-th to a man pronounced them kidnapped by the natives; plans for their recovery were proposed and canvassed by various knots, in various corners; but none could be decided on. Parade hour came, and still no account of them; and the excitement was at its height, when an oddlooking genius drove a cart into the square, and demanded to see Colonel Courtenay. The afflicted commander stepped forward, announcing his rank, and asked his business?

'I've got something in the cart that belongs to you,' was the reply.

The Colonel proceeded towards the vehicle, to identify his property, and the driver, to assist him, drew aside the fastening, and upset the contents about the square. Horror of horrors! there were his two officers huddled up in straw, senseless, and to all appearance lifeless. 'Dead?' exclaimed the agonized commander.

'Dead drunk only,' was the cool reply of the stranger. I promised to bring them safe home, and there they are, sound as a bell," and so saving he wheeled round his 'carriage,' and before any one thought of stopping him, to demand an explanation, was half a mile off on the road to Cloughmore.

The story spread with most unmerciful rapidity; and the Loughrea people would have canonized Minor Bodkin, if they only knew how to go about it; but the poor fifty-th never got the better of their discomfiture. At length it became known that a regiment for the West Indies was very badly wanted. So the fifty-th begged, as a favour, to be transported no matter where, so as it was out of the reach of · Minor Bodkin; and to the West Indies they went accordingly.

THE GREAT AUCTIONEER.

THERE are few places of public resort affording the gratuitous aids to reflection of which an idler is at liberty to avail himself at an Auction-mart. Whether as a scene of quiet entertainment or an emporium for the superabundant utilities of life, as a resting-place where nothing better offers for the jaded lounger or as a centre of busy interests' for those who want to buy and those who want to sell, its attractions are of that multifarious character that I hardly know how an observer, indisposed for more serious occupation, can while away a spare hour to better advantage than by taking the range of these property-changers' rooms about three o'clock in the afternoon, when the attendance is good, and the hammers are all in full play. Candidates of all degrees, from the connoisseur in nicnacs to the expectant representative of a county, spectators with empty looks and empty pockets who, were passports demanded at the door, could urge, some ennui, some curiosity, as their only title to admission, and languid-invalid-looking gentlemen, some in good clothes and some almost in tatters, are here thrown in promiscuous congregation together. As a physiognomist, where could he desire more genuine or more varied materials for speculation? And here, too, may he philosophize on the acquisitive propensities of humanity, tracing among the countless springs from which flow the joys of possession, the estimation of a bauble enhanced by the deterioration of age, the glitter of novelty supplanted by the charm of antiquity, the ambition of display, the strange passion for the unique, the electric spell of a bargain, and the wanton sport of competing with a rival bidder; and then heave a sigh for the transitory nature of those 'joys,' and the precarious tenure by which the comely and costly things of this life are held, even by those who can afford to give the topmost price for them!

But, apart from the general seductions of the place, there is something engaging in the forms and functions appertaining to the ministerial character of the auctioneer himself; there is an idiosyncrasy in the man, discriminating him from the lay humanities' around him, investing him with an aspect invitatory of criticism, though not, as with other dignitaries, inspiring the reverence which lays criticism under restraint, conspicuous without being commanding-privileged, authoritative, oracular, and yet after all a familiar creature, and only an auctioneer,-which pre-eminently distinguishes this class of practitioners from all others, and strikingly impresses them with the stamp of individuality. May I be permitted to sug. gest that to the fraternity of auctioneers the full meed of justice has not been rendered by the world? We read of celebrated statesmen and warriors, eccentric physicians, inimitable barristers and actors, astounding financiers, inspired poets, and still more inspired preachers, and have been made to learn from authentic sources the peculiarities of their genius, the practical arts that assisted its display, and the whole history of their lives and conversation,--but we have no gallery of Auctioneers. On the score of pecuniary encouragement they have no cause to murmur, but renown and posthumous honour is cruelly denied them; they may be favourites of fortune, but to

fame, in the exalted acceptation of the word, they are but heirs and strangers. For when does the obituary ever record in more than formal phraseology the lamented departure from the scene of his triumphs of Mr. So-and-so, the celebrated auctioneer?' What poesy was ever penned in commemoration of his defunct virtues of handsomer dimensions than those of a common epitaph? The gossip of the tapis never admits him to the honour of a rumour, or even of a libel, so that, despite his many and undeniable accomplishments, he must, under the usages against which in his behalf I would fain remonstrate, be content to marry, sin, and die in comparative obscurity, for his greatness is limited to the circle of his craft, and the four walls of the auction-room.

But there are exceptions to every rule. At the head of the list of auctioneers of the present day stands a gentleman of such high endowments and unquestionable superiority in his vocation, that I hardly dare presume to attempt his portraiture. He is a grand remove above the general cast of his order. In his person is concentred all the aristocracy of his calling. He is in the Auction-mart what Rothschild used to be on 'Change, or what Daniel Lambert would have been at Guildhall had he been a member of the City corporation, a triton among the minnows, a perfect leviathan, or, as the geologists would have it, a perfect iguanadon; he stands alone-not only in the box, but in the eye of the world, and of his pigmy bre. thren of the hammer. The appearance of this gentleman in public is heralded by the advertisement for several successive days, in the principal newspapers of a programme of his approaching sales, which presents as fair a specimen as pen could supply of the plausive and alluring powers, by the exercise of which his great professional eminence has been achieved. These effusions are unlike anything which ancient or modern literature affords, or rather, they combine the perfections of both, and in the mixture of perspicuity, luxuriance and refinement, which pervade them, as compositions they may be said to be without a parallel. He has the happy faculty of investing a genteel residence with supernatural enchantments, and of transporting his readers, all in the way of business, into the regions of fairy-land where splendour and beauty strive for the mastery. And he does it without drawing on invention for a fact, or presuming to enter one item in his catalogue, which an inspection of the estate does not fully justify. His effects are wrought by the sheer art of colouring. Where an ordinary auctioneer would give a description of a site, he will give a history of a site, and garnish it with a train of pleasing and romantic associations. He exhausts the pictorial beauties of his scene and then imagines new.' The vegetable world he endues with spirituality, and will give the ivy credit for ingenuity, as well as devotion to the domain that cherishes it, in the grace and order with which it entwines itself around the walls. Rocks he inspires with symmetry, and embryo chalybeates are incubated by his magic touch. Pomp and retirement are offered in equal perfection; here the tournaments of ancient days might be transcended, and yet Zimmerman have found inspiration for his muse. The thought that suggests itself to the mind on perusing these things is, how can the man knock down so many paradises! Is he a destroying angel in disguise? Or is it Cain's jawbone' he wieldeth in his left hand, miscalling it a hammer?

On the day appointed, and within five or ten minutes after the hour fixed for business, he is announced by the ringing of a bell, and a cluster of eager-looking persons in the lobby are seen wending towards the auction-room, headed by a tall hale-looking man, about sixty years of age, walking as though he were rather stiff in the joints, holding some papers in his hand, and talking (without look ing at any one as he moves) in a loud nasal tone and peremptory manner. He ascends the pulpit, and takes his seat, where he is seen more at leisure. On the occasion when I had the pleasure of seeing him, he was dressed in a pea-green frock-coat and velvet-collar, white-trowsers and shoes, a buff waistcoat, and a bright-blue stock, surmounted by an ample pair of gills, and a physiognomy to which only M. Claudet, when the sun, as the auctioneer is fond of saying is pleased to shine upon us,' could do full justice, a bald head, bordered with a modicum of white hair, a forehead of ample development, a rough weather-beaten complexion, lower features which come under the denomination of ordinary,' and a pair of dark destructive-looking eyes, quick in motion and various in expression, by nature wrathful, often watchful, playful if need be, and where the interests of his principal demand it, sparkling with merriment and fun. He looks a compound of the sportsman, the comedian, and the sea-captain, possessing considerable patronage, and of an iron constitution. A glass of water is brought up and placed beside him, slightly coloured. He arranges his papers, and, rubbing his glasses, surveys his congregation, recognizing here one and there one, and honouring each with a gentle inflection of the head, and a slight contraction of the eye by no means amounting to a smile-unless where he recognizes a capitalist or a distinguished intime, when, sportive as a kitten, genial as mine host of the tavern, and yet with something of causticity in his humour, he cries to him to 'come into court, you sir, and not be screening yourself that way from public observation' leaving no escape for the capitalist, who obeys the injunction and advances within whisper-shot of his tutelary friend, for there's more between them than meets the cursory ear, and the capitalist is not one of the loungers. He then, still seated, calls upon the clerk to read the conditions of sale,' apologizing in a bluff tone for the tediousness of that ceremony, which he owns to be 'flat and unprofitable,' asseverating viva voce, that if ever lines were appli cable, those lines of the great bard were applicable to the reading of conditions of sale;' but to which, however, he patiently listens, with his eye-glasses over his nose, and a copy of the 'unprofitable' document lying flat' before him. Interruptions now begin to arise. Gentlemen with ready money will ask questions. It is of no avail for the auctioneer to tell them that the title is unquestioned, that the Lord Chancellor has confirmed its validity in a court of equity, and that as far as that point goes one might make oneself happy about it, and without more ado go home and sleep and

'end the heart-ache,

And the thousand natural cares that flesh is heir to,'

he 'must be satisfied,' and catechises the advocate accordingly,the catechumen looks condescension, and meets his inquiries with promptitude and effect. I understand there are few that venture to