I repeat it; we deserve our popularity.
Which of us does not get head and ears in debt with garrison balls and steeple-chases, picnics, regattas, and the thousand-and-one inventions to get rid of one's spare cash,--so called for being so sparingly dealt out by our governors?
Now and then, too, when all else fails, we take a newly-joined ensign and make him marry some pretty but penniless lass in a country town, just to show the rest that we are not joking, but have serious ideas of matrimony in the midst of all our flirtations.

If it were all like this, the Green Isle would be a paradise; but unluckily every now and then one is condemned to some infernal place where there is neither a pretty face nor tight ankle, where the priest himself is not a good fellow, and long, ill-paved, straggling streets, filled on market days with booths of striped calico and soapy cheese, is the only promenade, and a ruinous barrack, with mouldy walls and a tumbling chimney, the only quarters.
"In vain, on your return from your morning stroll or afternoon canter, you look on the chimney-piece for a shower of visiting-cards and pink notes of invitation; in vain you ask your servant, Has any one called.

Alas, your only visitor has been the ganger, to demand a party to assist in still-hunting amidst that interesting class of the population who, having nothing to eat, are engaged in devising drink, and care as much for the life of a red-coat as you do for that of a crow or a curlew.

This may seem overdrawn; but I would ask you, Were you ever for your sins quartered in that capital city of the Bog of Allen they call Philipstown?
Oh, but it is a romantic spot! They tell us somewhere that much of the expression of the human face divine depends upon the objects which constantly surround us.
Thus the inhabitants of mountain districts imbibe, as it were, a certain bold and daring character of expression from the scenery, very different from the placid and monotonous look of those who dwell in plains and valleys; and I can certainly credit the theory in this instance, for every man, woman, and child you meet has a brown, baked, scruffy, turf-like face, that fully satisfies you that if Adam were formed of clay the Philipstown people were worse treated and only made of bog mould.
"Well, one fine morning poor Tom and myself were marched off from Birr, where one might 'live and love forever,' to take up our quarters at this sweet spot.

Little we knew of Philipstown; and like my friend the adjutant there, when he laid siege to Deny, we made our _entree_ with all the pomp we could muster, and though we had no band, our drums and fifes did duty for it; and we brushed along through turf-creels and wicker-baskets of new brogues that obstructed the street till we reached the barrack,--the only testimony of admiration we met with being, I feel bound to admit, from a ragged urchin of ten years, who, with a wattle in his hand, imitated me as I marched along, and when I cried halt, took his leave of us by dexterously fixing his thumb to the side of his nose and outstretching his fingers, as if thus to convey a very strong hint that we were not half so fine fellows as we thought ourselves.