No sooner did a young ensign join his regiment at Cork, than Major Dalrymple's card was left at his quarters; the next day came the major himself; the third brought an invitation to dinner; on the fourth he was told to drop in, in the evening; and from thenceforward, he was the _ami de la maison_, in company with numerous others as newly-fledged and inexperienced as himself.
One singular feature of the society at the house was that although the major was as well known as the flag on Spike Island, yet somehow, no officer above the rank of an ensign was ever to be met with there.

It was not that he had not a large acquaintance; in fact, the "How are you, Major ?" "How goes it, Dalrymple ?" that kept everlastingly going on as he walked the streets, proved the reverse; but strange enough, his predilections leaned towards the newly gazetted, far before the bronzed and seared campaigners who had seen the world, and knew more about it.

The reasons for this line of conduct were twofold.

In the first place, there was not an article of outfit, from a stock to a sword-belt, that he could not and did not supply to the young officer,--from the gorget of the infantry to the shako of the grenadier, all came within his province; not that he actually kept a _magasin_ of these articles, but he had so completely interwoven his interests with those of numerous shopkeepers in Cork that he rarely entered a shop over whose door Dalrymple & Co.

might not have figured on the sign-board.