The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer | Page 6

any return to reason, was a strong
anxiety to be at my quarters; but how to get there I knew not. The faint
glimmering of sense I possessed told me that "to stand was to fall," and
I was ashamed to go on all-fours, which prudence suggested.
At this moment I remembered I had brought with me my cane, which,
from a perhaps pardonable vanity, I was fond of parading. It was a
present from the officers of my regiment--many of them, alas, since
dead--and had a most splendid gold head, with a stag at the top--the
arms of the regiment. This I would not have lost for any consideration I
can mention; and this now was gone! I looked around me on every side;
I groped beneath the table; I turned the sleeping sots who lay about in
no very gentle fashion; but, alas, it was gone. I sprang to my feet and
only then remembered how unfit I was to follow up the search, as tables,
chairs, lights, and people seemed all rocking and waving before me.
However, I succeeded in making my way, through one room into
another, sometimes guiding my steps along the walls; and once, as I
recollect, seeking the diagonal of a room, I bisected a quadrille with
such ill-directed speed, as to run foul of a Cork dandy and his partner
who were just performing the "en avant:" but though I saw them lie
tumbled in the dust by the shock of my encounter--for I had upset
them--I still held on the even tenor of my way. In fact, I had feeling for
but one loss; and, still in pursuit of my cane, I reached the hall-door.
Now, be it known that the architecture of the Cork Mansion House has
but one fault, but that fault is a grand one, and a strong evidence of
how unsuited English architects are to provide buildings for a people
whose tastes and habits they but imperfectly understand--be it known,
then, that the descent from the hall-door to the street was by a flight of
twelve stone steps. How I should ever get down these was now my
difficulty. If Falstaff deplored "eight yards of uneven ground as being
three score and ten miles a foot," with equal truth did I feel that these

twelve awful steps were worse to me than would be M'Gillicuddy Reeks
in the day-light, and with a head clear from champagne.
While I yet hesitated, the problem resolved itself; for, gazing down
upon the bright gravel, brilliantly lighted by the surrounding lamps, I
lost my balance, and came tumbling and rolling from top to bottom,
where I fell upon a large mass of some soft substance, to which, in all
probability, I owe my life. In a few seconds I recovered my senses, and
what was my surprise to find that the downy cushion beneath, snored
most audibly! I moved a little to one side, and then discovered that in
reality it was nothing less than an alderman of Cork, who, from his
position, I concluded had shared the same fate with myself; there he lay,
"like a warrior taking his rest," but not with his "martial cloak around
him," but a much more comfortable and far more costly robe--a scarlet
gown of office--with huge velvet cuffs and a great cape of the same
material. True courage consists in presence of mind; and here mine
came to my aid at once: recollecting the loss I had just sustained, and
perceiving that all was still about me, with that right Peninsular maxim,
that reprisals are fair in an enemy's camp, I proceeded to strip the slain;
and with some little difficulty--partly, indeed, owing to my unsteadiness
on my legs--I succeeded in denuding the worthy alderman, who gave no
other sign of life during the operation than an abortive effort to "hip,
hip, hurra," in which I left him, having put on the spoil, and set out on
my way the the barrack with as much dignity of manner as I could
assume in honour of my costume. And here I may mention (en
parenthese) that a more comfortable morning gown no man ever
possessed, and in its wide luxuriant folds I revel, while I write these
lines.
When I awoke on the following day I had considerable difficulty in
tracing the events of the past evening. The great scarlet cloak, however,
unravelled much of the mystery, and gradually the whole of my career
became clear before me, with the single exception of the episode of Phil
Beamish, about which my memory was subsequently refreshed--but I
anticipate. Only five appeared that day at mess; and, Lord! What
spectres they were!--yellow as guineas; they called for soda water
without ceasing, and scarcely spoke a word to