was there such a set got together since the days
of Gomorrah !" (Sir John shivered a little at
this unpleasant allusion.) " Well, sir, he had a
friend—a quiet soul, with a wife and three little
children, a decent, quiet, thoroughly good fellow,
in the wine business too; and, dammy! if he
didn't want to stay quietly in his wine, if he
was only let. But he wasn't. Jack Fermor,
sir, had a trick of making other fellows as like
himself as two peas. Well, sir, this quiet sheep
of a Manuel——"

"Manuel!" said Carter, starting.

"Manuel!" said Sir John, thinking of Miss
Manuel; "how odd."

"So it was," said the colonel. "But it was
odder when Jack got this creature well into his
hands, and got his wine, and his money, and his
savings, into his hands too. He did it uncommon
clever, did Jack. He was training him, he said.
Well, there was another man," he went on,
"who came out there on business, who had a
young girl of a wife, whom he was so fond of.
Dammy," said the colonel, laughing, " how we
used to laugh at him. He was a Scotchman,
and set up to be a cautious, quiet, calculating
rascal. But I used to go and see him very
often, and so used our set, for reasons that you
will perhaps understand. Eh! What d'ye say?"

And the colonel here half closed one of his
odious old eyes with exquisite meaning.

"There was about twenty years between him
and this child he called his wife. She might have
been his daughter five times over: so what do
you suppose this stupid set himself to do? Why,
he set up for being the old fellow, the fatherly
dodge, and kept trying to amuse her in every
way, and kept coming to us and bothering; 'Now
do come and see that poor child, and talk to her.
She wants amusement, and I don't know how to
amuse her.' And didn't we go? O, not at all."
And here again the Peninsular half-closed his
odious old eye with extraordinary significance.
"And one day," he went on, "we took it into
our heads to bring that wild scamp Jack Fermor.
And Jack Fermor took into his head one day to
bring our soft friend Manuel. And our soft
friend—leaving his own lady, and his two girls,
and one boy, at home—came very often to talk
to her. Do you see what is coming now?"

The major did, or conveyed by his manner that
he did. Sir John did not quite follow.

"He was the queerest young old fellow I ever
saw, this Dr. Meadows (that was the Scotchman's
name). He must have been close to
forty then, and as stiff and hard as ramrods. We
never saw him bend, and we used to call him
'Rod Meadows,' or Roddy Meadows. But it
was plain that he was wild about the little white
child he called his wife—infatuated, in fact; and
it was plain, too, that the little chit did not care
particularly for him. I may say, without vanity,
she liked the company of your humble servant a
deu-sed deal better," added the colonel, with his
favourite objectionable motion of his eye. " A
lot of us used to come and sit with her for hours,
and make her laugh; and I must say your humble
servant didn't sit for the shortest time; no, nor
he didn't drive out now and then, and walk a
little on what they called their Prado! Dammy,
sir, those were the days for real. life.

"Well, sir, I knew the game old Roddy
Meadows was at. It was the gratitude dodge,
and the regard, you know, ripening, as they call
it, into affection. I have seen life," said the
colonel, laughing heartily, " and I never met that
sort of ripening yet. It didn't ripen with him,
my boy, at any rate; but," added the colonel,
with a dramatic slowness and significance, "it
was ripening with somebody else.

" O," said the colonel, beginning to ramble a
little, his fishy eye staggering somewhat, as it
were, " I could go on from this till morning
about those days. There's nothing like them
now. These ain't what you can call days! As
for that fellow who writes books about Recollections"
(this was always an irritant with the
colonel), " what can he have to tell, dammy?
Stirabout, sir! Tapioca! Gruel, gruel, sir!"
said the colonel, looking almost ill with disgust;
"how I hate such slops!"

Most of the colonel's friends knew that about
this period he strengthened the weaker portions
of his conversation with oaths more strong and
frequent. They were a relief, and sent him on
the faster.

"Well, about that scamp Fermor. He was
soon at the end of his tether. He had got all he
could get, that was to be begged, or borrowed,
or—No," said the colonel, closing the eye
that was in liquor with some difficulty, but with
a grotesque humour, "no; he was now coming
to that."

"I see," said Carter, smiling.

Sir John, being a country gentleman, did not
see nearly so quickly. " Coming to what?"

"Dammy!" Colonel Foley went on, "if I
believe he had only the coat on his back left.
He was always in and out of the Scotch fellow's
house. I believe he got round the creature a
good bit, and got some dollars out of him. As
for the Scotch doctor's money, I needn't tell you,
who are a man of the world, Carter" (Sir John
moved a little uneasily in his chair at this rather
pointed exclusion of himself from that class),
"that he was not likely to pay that up in a
hurry. And why the devil should he? But the
worst  was, he didn't stop there—This sherry,
here, is like mother's milk to me. I am scalded
with the stuff they give us at Dunkirk. As for
their clarets and ' ordinary,' by the Lord, sir, it
really scrapes me here—here, sir," said the
colonel, laying his palm on his watch-chain.
" Well, to be short about it, the Scotch fellow,
who had gone to the country and wasn't to be
back for a week, came back one night quite
suddenly, and found—Dammy now, what d'ye
suppose he found?" And the colonel, stretching
over for what he had called mother's milk,
leisurely filled himself a great glass, as it were to
fill up the time while the others were busy