'And so, what do you say, lieutenant, to a Welsh rabbit for supper?'
The lieutenant nodded a stolid assent.
'Will _you_ have one, Nutter?' cried Toole.
'No,' said Nutter.
'And why not?' says Toole.
'Why, I believe Tom Rooke's song in praise of oysters,' answered Nutter,
'especially the verse--
'"The youth will ne'er live to scratch a gray head,
On a supper who goes of Welsh rabbit to bed."'
How came it to pass that Nutter hardly opened his lips this evening--on
which, as the men who knew him longest all remarked, he was
unprecedentedly talkative--without instantaneously becoming the mark at
which O'Flaherty directed his fiercest and most suspicious scowls? And
now that I know the allusion which the pugnacious lieutenant
apprehended, I cannot but admire the fatality with which, without the
smallest design, a very serious misunderstanding was brought about.
'As to _youths_ living to scratch gray heads or not, Sir,' said the
young officer, in most menacing tones; 'I don't see what concern persons
of your age can have in that. But I'll take leave to tell you, Sir, that
a gentleman, whether he be a "youth" as you _say_, or aged, as you
_are_, who endayvours to make himself diverting at the expense of
others, runs a murdhering good risk, Sir, of getting himself scratched
where he'll like it least.
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