‘You cannot have money hoarded? That would be very unlike a school-boy. You must be nearly cleaned out by this time. I made you pay your own expenses on purpose; and there will be the bill here. You ought to be nearly penniless. You will have to remain here, and turn farm labourer or starve.’ ‘I shall not do that, you may depend. I have been well educated, thanks to Lady Farrington. I am not afraid of work, and I am well able to take care of myself. At any rate I look to you for nothing, and all I wish now is to get away from you and this place.’ Herbert called for his bill, paid it with his last sovereign, asked the way to the nearest railway station--Newton Abbot--and started off on foot, determined to get back to London as soon as he could. Thence he would find his way to Triggertown. The Larkins were the only friends left in the world; and Mrs. Larkins, as Lady Farrington had said, was the person who possessed the only link wanting in the chain of proofs which was to establish his claims. At Newton Abbot he sold his watch, and had money for his ticket to London and to spare. Parting with other articles of his apparel to supply his necessities upon the road, he found himself at Triggertown upon the third day. How familiar the place seemed! Six years since he left it--a child, and now returning as a man he found everything unchanged. He passed up the covered way, across the drawbridge under the arch, and stood at the door of the casemate, expecting next moment to see the sergeant and Mrs. Larkins, and the whole of the brood. But it was a stranger who came to answer his knock; a small vixenish woman with a shrewish tongue. She gave him a very short answer. ‘Larkinses? They don’t stop here. Been gone these years. Where? How do I know? They got the route right enough; that’s all I can tell you.’ ‘Was there no one in the barracks who could tell him?’ Herbert asked. ‘No,’ said the woman, abruptly, and shut the door in his face. The sentry would not let him pass the inner gates. The gate sergeant, who came up, peremptory and consequential, was still more inhospitable. Whom did Herbert want? A barrack sergeant of the name of Larkins? There was no such name in the garrison. ‘Better write to the Secretary of State for War, my man,’ said the gate sergeant with gruff condescension, ‘or to the Archbishop of Canterbury. One’s as likely to tell you as another. But you must clear out of this. Can’t have no loiterers about here. Them’s my orders. May be the adjutant or the sergeant-major’ll come this way, and I don’t choose to be blamed for you.’ ‘What regiment do you belong to?’ asked Herbert. ‘Can’t you see for yourself?’ Where could this young man have been raised not to recognise the uniform of the Duke’s Own Fusiliers? ‘Is it a good corps?’ The sergeant was aghast at the fellow’s impudence. Like every soldier of the old school, he had been brought up to believe that his regiment was not only a good one, but the very best in the service.