The inn, like the town, being made to accommodate the periodical crowds of visitors who attended the fair, presented in their absence rather a faded and desolate look; and in spite of the live stock for which the place is famous, the only portion of their produce which I could get to my share, CISCO 640-863 after twelve hours' fasting and an hour's bell-ringing and scolding, was one very lean mutton-chop and one very small damp kidney, brought in by an old tottering waiter to a table spread in a huge black coffee-room, dimly lighted by one little jet of gas. As this only served very faintly to light up the above banquet, the waiter, upon remonstrance, proceeded to light the other bec; but the lamp was sulky, and upon this attempt to force it, as it were, refused to act altogether, and went out. The big room was then accommodated with a couple of yellow mutton-candles. There was a neat, handsome, correct young English officer warming his slippers at the fire, and opposite him sat a worthy gentleman, with a glass of "mingled materials," discoursing to him in a very friendly and confidential way. As I don't know the gentleman's name, and as it is not at all improbable, from the situation in which he was, that he has quite forgotten the night's conversation, I hope there will be no breach of confidence in recalling some part of it. The speaker s was dressed in deep black-worn, however, with that dégagé air (peculiar to the votaries of Bacchus, or that nameless god, off-spring of Bacchus and Ceres, who may have invented the noble liquor called whiskey. It was fine to see the easy folds in which his neck-cloth confined a shirt-collar moist with the generous drops that trickled from the chin above,--its little percentage upon the punch. There was a fine dashing black-satin waistcoat that called for its share, and generously disdained to be buttoned. I think this is the only specimen I have seen yet of the personage still so frequently described in the Irish novels--the careless drinking squire--the Irish Will Whimble. "Sir," says he, "as I was telling you before this gentleman came in (from Wesport, I preshume, sir, by the mail? and my service to you!), the butchers in Tchume (Tuam)--where I live, and shall be happy to see you and give you a shakedown, a cut a of mutton, and the use of as good a brace of pointers as ever you shot over--the butchers say to me, whenever I look in at their shops and ask for a joint of meat--they say: 'Take down that quarther o' mutton, boy; IT'S NO USE WEIGHING it for Mr. Bodkin. He can tell with an eye what's the weight of it to an ounce!' And so, sir, I can; and I'd make CISCO 642-426 a bet to go into any market in Dublin, Tchume, Ballinasloe, where you please, and just by looking at the meat decide its weight." At the pause, during which the gentleman here designated Bodkin drank off his "Materials," the young officer said gravely that this was a very rare and valuable accomplishment, and thanked him for the invitation to Tchume. The honest gentleman proceeded with his personal memoirs; and (with a charming modesty that authenticated his tale, while it interested his hearers for the teller) he called for a fresh tumbler, and began discoursing about horses. "Them I don't know," says he, confessing the fact at once; "or, if I do, I've been always so unlucky with them that it's as good as if I didn't. "To give you an idea of my ill-fortune: Me brother-'n-law Burke once sent me three colts of his to sell at this very fair Ballinasloe, and for all I could do I could only get a bid for one of 'em, and sold her for sixteen pounds. And d'ye know what that mare was, sir?" says Mr. Bodkin, giving a thump hat made the spoon jump out of the punch-glass for fright. D'ye know who she was? she was Water-Wagtail, sir,--Water Wagtail! She won fourteen cups and plates in Ireland before she went to Liverpool; and you know what she did there?" (We said, "Oh! of course.") "Well, sir, the man who bought her from me sold her for four hunder' guineas; and in England she fetched eight hunder' pounds. Another of them very horses, gentlemen (Tim, some hot wather--screeching hot, you divil--and a sthroke of the limin) another of them horses that I was refused fifteen pound for, me brother-in-law sould to Sir Rufford Bufford for a hunder' and-fifty guineas. Wasn't that luck? "Well, sir, Sir Rufford gives Burke his bill at six months,a nd don't pay it when it come jue. A pretty pickle Tom Burke was in, as I leave ye to fancy, for he'd paid away CISCO 642-446 the bill, which he thought as good as goold; and sure it ought to be, or Sir Rufford had come of age since the bill was drawn, and before it was due, and, as I needn't tell you, had slipped into very handsome property.