not be so soft as to find every fellow in
cigars; and that is just a friendly caution
he gives them: of course it is nothing to
him. And it is Parker who, by laborious
little tricks, always contrives to get the
best room, or, when there is any choice, the
thing best worth having.

There was, as there is in every regiment,
the young married pair, with children and
very slender means, he having displeased
his father by his marriage. The young
Mrs. Dunlop had been a bright-eyed girl,
but was now much worn and faded, her
three children with her; her faithful drudge
of a stout maid, who was nurse, and cook,
and quite Protean in her capacities. The
upper maid, who was the young Mrs.
Dunlop herself, had a sickly, over-worked
air, which came from the constant labour
and attendance on her children, as well as
from the periodic sickness which attended
the introduction of these young creatures
into the world. Lieutenant Dunlop, a
delicate-looking young man, with a small
black moustache, showed his sense of trials
in a fussy, fretful manner, and a worried
look. Every one had sympathy for this
pair, who, starting in the full flush of
youth and enjoyment in the happiest of
lives, had of a sudden found that, by
some cruel dispensation, they were
condemned to a life of servitude, drudgery,
and struggle. Yet they were not more than
five-and-twenty each. People entering their
rooms—and they were obliged to live in
barracks—found an air of squalor and mess,
and infantine confusion; a child sick, a child
crying, with which the young wife and her
stalwart maid were busily engaged doing
battle.

In the regiment, too, was a "shady"
officer, Mr. Hickey, regarded with suspicion
and dislike, feelings based on the fact of
his being a Liverpool attorney's son. From
the day he joined, this officer had been
regarded unfavourably, mainly on account
of a certain sharpness of practice and coolness
that seemed to colour all his proceedings.
He was, besides "knowing,"
invariably the gainer in any transactions he
had with his fellows; yet always contriving
to keep within not only the strict limits
of conventional legal behaviour, but even
within the unwritten code of honour
required by the regiment. There was no
"sending him to Coventry." At any
attempt at so doing, he skilfully put his
enemies "in the wrong box," and rather
gained an advantage by their blunders.
He was a good hand at whist: it could
not be said that he played unfairly, yet his
success was put down to his miserable
"quarter sessions" tactics. To the colonel,
a large, blunt, honest, rough, good-natured
officer, the presence of this man operated
like a wound in his own flesh, kept open
and irritated by some sharp instrument.
Every day seemed to bring some new
agony. The very presence of "that
infernal attorney" goaded and fretted him
with fury. It seemed a disgrace on the
regiment. "A lot of gentlemen can't live
together without some pettifogging attorney
getting among them with his low tricks and
quibbles. Never mind, I'll root him out of
the regiment yet!" But to this task he was
wholly unequal. The "attorney," always
respectful, could play him "like a fish,"
and lash him to fury. He had a flow of
respectful language, and would quietly
protest against what seemed injustice.

"I will not pretend, sir, not to know
that the feeling against me arises from my
father's profession. He, I know, has the
misfortune to be a respectable solicitor, in
large practice."

"Then it was a pity, Captain Hickey,
you did not follow it. From my soul, I
wish you had."

"Most naturally you do, sir; but surely
I was allowed to choose my own mode of
life? The authorities made no objection to
my entering the army."

Colonel Bouchier was bad at argument,
and had, of course, nothing to reply. The
officer was, of course, in the right. There
were several manufacturers represented in
the regiment, who might socially take lower
rank than the solicitor's son; and when
some of them were indiscreet enough to
join in the cry, it was pleasant, and
certainly quite fair, to see how calmly he
would reason with, say, the well-known
wine-merchant's son, and the opulent cigar-
dealer's sole heir, as to the general level
on which they all three were, and how, if
he chose to push the argument further, the
rules of society would give him superiority,
as attached to a "learned profession."

Captain Parker, as the independent
politician in the regiment, always took his
side in a sort of contemptuous fashion.
"The man can't help it," he would say,
"he acts according to his rights. The
leopard can't change his spots, nor the
attorney his coat. Don't draw me into
any of these prejudices, I beg." Even as
they had entered the town they brought
one of these unseemly squabbles with them.
They had put up at an inn on the march