public money for saving souls.—professionally,
you understand—and I'd like to know
what they can show for the cash."

"You two are always at it," said Lord
Shipton. "Uncommonly good."

"Another slice—thin as a wafer—I
think we just hit the turn. Polly, my
sweet, I'm sending you just a shaving.
Never mind, please the pigs maybe, we'll
have many a young sub getting his legs
under as fine a piece of beef as that. We'll
have the captain and major, and the tender
sucking little cornets all round. My poor
boys!  in a strange place, and away from
their mammas! Only think."

"Never fear, you'll be paternal enough,"
said Billy. "I look on the soldier affair as
quite settled. I think our joint and spirited
attack to-day, was the last nail. Leader
will do it, and they can't resist a man of
that sort."

"She'll do it, you mean. Did you ever
see such a Judy, with her green mildewed
face? She ought to have a glass over it,
like the bit of cheese I'm giving you by-
and-bye."

"Well, she impressed me very favourably
—spoke to me so nicely," said Billy.

The Doctor put on a comical look. "Just
listen to him. Dr. Dodd, that was hanged,
is a child to you! You may put the living
out of your head, my boy. Clarke is tough
enough, and there is a ready-baked cousin
of hers ready to skip into his shoes."

"Did you pick up that low view of
human action in Ireland, Peter? We don't
understand it over here."

"That's why it's such a fine district
for the knaves——–"

"And why, I suppose, it attracted you
here?"

"Ah! but d'ye think, Lord Shipton,
we'll have the soldiers? And when, now?"
asks Polly. "I'm dying to see them. It'll
be such fun seeing them ride by on their
horses, and having the band to play."

"Yes, my child, we'll have them running
in and out here like scarlet Tom cats."

"Oh, we do want a little freshening up,"
said the Reverend Billy.

"A few sixpenny points, my boy, eh?
You'll be ex-oflicio chaplain to the men—
won't you make them pious and
virtuous!"

The Reverend Mr. Webber was a little
nettled at this strain of jesting, and said
with an air of great reproof: "My dear
Peter, you are very funny in your own way;
but you sometimes trench a little profanely
on sacred matters. I do hope I shall do
my duty by the soldiers, and make them
wiser and better fellows."

The Doctor smiled round the table.
"Mea culpa, your reverence, I meant no
harm. I'm a poor dacent boy. Surely,
Polly there knows I'd be a mere castaway
but for the ministrations of the reverend
gentleman opposite."

"Nonsense, Mr. Webber; the idea of
you! You know you were never intended
for a clergyman."

Billy had to laugh, though a little
ruefully. It is rather hard on our clerical
jesters, that the return for their efforts to
entertain us, and de-ordain themselves,
should be what the Doctor would call
"rude wipes" of this sort. The ladies
now went up; the Doctor, diving into the
"bar," re-appeared in a most comically
suspicious way with a mustard-coloured,
corpulent stone jar in his hand, which he
affected to carry, as if in terror of the
preventive service. The Reverend Mr.
Webber, now in full flush of spirits, at
once entered into the spirit of the scene;
starting up and seizing the carver off the
sideboard, he assumed the bearing of a
gauger, hitching up his trousers nautically,
and seizing his host by the collar.

"Mercy! It's milk—only a little milk,
sir, for a sick child at home," the Doctor
whined, with comic terror.

After this performance, "the materials"
appeared—a noble copper punch-kettle
"that you could see to shave in," lemons
enough to set up a shop with, nutmegs
"as big as alleytaws," and a stick for each
man "to put in his mouth"—scraps of
description from the Doctor's speech.

"Here's to the soldiers, when they come,"
said the host. "And I tell you what, my
lord, we're neither of us worth the rind
of that lemon, if we don't retain a percentage
of them in the parish."

"I have no doubt if they get into this
house they'll get hard hit, and happy
for them. Miss Polly and Miss Katey
upstairs are very dangerous."

"Ah! you are setting me down so
selfish as all that? Do I want to keep all
the military fat for myself! Heaven forbid!
Won't anything be done at Shipton?
Never fear!" added the Doctor, maliciously.
"Many's the banquet we'll have in the
hospitable halls of Shipton to the gallant
defenders of our country, and much
good may it do them."

Lord Shipton, puffing his "emperor,"
said, "it was very good, indeed,"though
scarcely pleased at this familiar "dig" at