]830.] The United Service Smoke-shop : a Winter Sketch. 551 



Major Claymore. Mester Bourgyne, we have the pleasure of calling 

 ye Boots to-night. Ye'el do me the favour to ring the bell. 



\_Burgoyne rings.~\ 



Enter landlord, who takes orders for reinforcement of grogs, ale, Sfc. 

 Enter two members, Captain Kilkenny and Lieutenant Mainbrace, R. N. 



Omnes. Ah, welcome, Kilkenny ! All hail, CAPTAIN ! Kilkenny and 

 Mainbrace, all hail ! 



Capt. Kilkenny. All snow, you might say. But here, gentlemen, I 

 am. CAPTAIN at least ! a captain of twenty-four hours standing, and a 

 soldier of twenty -four years service ! However, welcome promotion 

 on any terms. 



Major Claymore. Captain Kilkenny, I sincerely wish you joy of your 

 step; and my next wish is for a speedy call into actual service, the credit 

 of which no man would more honourably sustain. 



Capt. Kilkenny. Thank you, from my heart, major, for your kind 

 wishes ; it is but a poor service, however, when after a quarter of a 

 century's hard fagging in all climates, a fellow must be deemed by his 

 friends a fit subject for congratulation on attaining the wonderful pro- 

 vision of seven shillings a day, and a place on the half-pay shelf, perhaps 

 for life ! 



Mainbrace. Avast there, Joey, my boy ; recollect the honour of the 

 thing CAPTAIN is a good name for any man who wears a cockade ; but 

 a real captain is a host, as I may say : what say you to it, Navarino Ben ? 



Beau Ben. Why, Jack, that I wish I was a real CAPTAIN, as you say; 

 you see how touchy certain persons are about titles, and tie us down to 

 that of Commander, as if it was high treason to call us CAPTAIN ; and 

 this too from chaps that have but just got the lift themselves. 



Mainbrace. The very sort, of course, for your old hands would be 

 above it ; but though there may be here and there such blocks, dang it, 

 they are not a fair specimen of the blue coat : we are, to be sure, grum- 

 blers, from middy to " red at the main ;" but we can't be accused of 

 depressing each other. 



Lt. Col. Towlter. Humph ! (sending out a long whiff of smoke.) Settle 

 that amongst yourselves, gentlemen. 



Beau Ben. Mainbrace ! you are a most generous fellow to talk so just 

 now, when, to my knowledge, you are smarting under an act of neglect, 

 so unkind and unexpected, that it would have rendered any other man 

 but yourself peevish. 



Mainbrace. Pooh ! pooh ! Ben, that squall's blown over. I was, to be 

 sure, promised a shove into a " twenty-eight;" and left my reverend 

 dad's comfortable Christmas fire-side, and (hanging up my gun in 

 ordinary) tramped up to London to receive my appointment : but you 

 ought to know that LORDS are not always MASTERS. Some other, and 

 perhaps better fellow, has chopped in for the number of my mess ; and 

 success to him, I say ! I can go back to the old Parsonage House can 

 shoot, hunt, drink my wine, dance, and carry-on " till all's blue again," 

 without shaking hands with our liberal agent, Sir Francis Omnibus, 

 above once a year. Not so, my Beau Ben, with many a brave fellow 

 who cools his heels from meridian till midnight, walking about this un- 

 charitable town, without any one to ask him if he has such a thing as a 

 mouth ! spinning his yarn of existence on the poor Jive shillings a day ; 

 hardly able to show colours damned queer in the canvas, and some- 



