have been the limit to such success, heaven alone can tell, if it were not that he laboured under a counter-balancing infirmity, sufficient to have swamped a line-of-battle ship itself.  It was simply this—­a most unfortunate propensity to talk of the wrong place, person, or time, in any society he found himself; and this taste for the mal apropos, extended so far, that no one ever ventured into company with him as his friend, without trembling for the result; but even this, I believe his only fault, resulted from the natural goodness of his character and intentions; for, believing as he did, in his honest simplicity, that the arbitrary distinctions of class and rank were held as cheaply by others as himself, he felt small scruple at recounting to a duchess a scene in a cabaret, and with as little hesitation would he, if asked, have sung the “Cruiskeen lawn,” or the “Jug of Punch,” after Lablanche had finished the “Al Idea,” from Figaro.  ‘Mauvaise honte,’ he had none; indeed I am not sure that he had any kind of shame whatever, except possibly when detected with a coat that bore any appearance of newness, or if overpersuaded to wear gloves, which he ever considered as a special effeminacy.

Such, in a few words, was the gentleman I now presented to my friends, and how far he insinuated himself into their good graces, let the fact tell, that on my return to the breakfast-room, after about an hour’s absence, I heard him detailing the particulars of a route they were to take by his advice, and also learned that he had been offered and had accepted a seat in their carriage to Paris.

“Then I’ll do myself the pleasure of joining your party, Mrs. Bingham,” said he.  “Bingham, I think, madam, is your name.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Any relation, may I ask, of a most dear friend of mine, of the same name, from Currynaslattery, in the county Wexford?”

“I am really not aware,” said Mrs. Bingham.  “My husband’s family are, I believe, many of them from that county.”

“Ah, what a pleasant fellow was Tom!” said Mr. O’Leary musingly, and with that peculiar tone which made me tremble, for I knew well that a reminiscence was coming.  “A pleasant fellow indeed.”

“Is he alive, sir, now?”

“I believe so, ma’am; but I hear the climate does not agree with him.”

“Ah, then, he’s abroad!  In Italy probably?”

“No, ma’am, in Botany Bay.  His brother, they say, might have saved him, but he left poor Tom to his fate, for he was just then paying court to a Miss Crow, I think, with a large fortune.  Oh, Lord, what have I said, it’s always the luck of me!” The latter exclamation was the result of a heavy saugh upon the floor, Mrs. Bingham having fallen in a faint—­she being the identical lady alluded to, and her husband the brother of pleasant Tom Bingham.

To hurl Mr. O’Leary out of the room by one hand, and ring the bell with the other, was the work of a moment; and with proper care, and in due time, Mrs. Bingham was brought to herself, when most fortunately, she entirely forgot the cause of her sudden indisposition; and, of course, neither her daughter nor myself suffered any clue to escape us which might lead to its discovery.