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.

When we were once more upon the road, to efface if it might be necessary any unpleasant recurrence to the late scene, I proceeded to give Mrs. Bingham an account of my adventure at Chantraine, in which, of course, I endeavoured to render my friend O’Leary all the honours of being laughed at in preference to myself, laying little stress upon my masquerading in the jack-boots.

“You are quite right,” said O’Leary, joining in the hearty laugh against him, “quite right, I was always a very heavy sleeper—­indeed if I wasn’t I wouldn’t be here now, travelling about en garcon, free as air;” here he heaved a sigh, which from its incongruity with his jovial look and happy expression, threw us all into renewed laughter.

“But why, Mr. O’Leary—­what can your sleepiness have to do with such tender recollections, for such, I am sure, that sigh bespeaks them?”

“Ah! ma’am, it may seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, if it were not for that unfortunate tendency, I should now be the happy possessor of a most accomplished and amiable lady, and eight hundred per annum three and a half per cent. stock.”