The leading spirit and showman of the regiment at this particular epoch was the junior major Cavendish-Diggle. Diggle was, in his way, a man of parts, young, pushing, ambitious, passably rich. No one knew exactly where he came from, or who were his belongings or his people. One of his patronymics was decidedly patrician, the other as unmistakeably commonplace. He might be a cousin of the Duke of Devonshire; and again he might not. When anyone asked him the question--and it was one he liked to have put to him--he smiled pleasantly, and said that the Cavendishes were all related, as everybody knew. But he was not so well pleased when people, envious or cynical, or both, remarked casually that Diggle was the name of the great grocers in Cheapside. There was no connection on that side of course, but the allusion was far from agreeable to him, as a shrewd observer might have noticed from his face and his avowed hostility to anyone who dared to make the remark. There were not many who were bold enough to attack him however. He could hold his own always. Nature had endowed him with a good presence and abundance of self-confidence; he could talk well, had a good voice, and was an excellent _raconteur_. These gifts were naturally of great service to him; not alone for purposes of repartee and self-defence; they were also exceedingly useful in assisting him to obtain that social success which had ever been one of the principal aims of his life. In his boyhood, when he had made his _début_ as a second lieutenant in the Duke’s Own Fusiliers, he had had an uphill game to play. The regiment was then, as it still aspired to be, eminently aristocratic, and no one was disposed to welcome a Diggle with rapturous effusion. There was nothing against the lad, however, except the possible obscurity of his origin; on the contrary, there was much in his favour. He was modest and unpretending, fully impressed with the ‘greatness’ of ‘the regiment’ he had joined, falling down readily to worship the principal personages who were its idols at the time. He sought to attach himself to one or two of the most distinguished cadets of noble houses, who were nobodies at home, but made a good deal of in the Duke’s Own. Diggle’s hero worship, accompanied as it was by a willingness to bet, play _écarté_, and do good turns to his superiors--he thought them so himself--met with its reward, and he soon found himself in the position to enjoy the daily companionship and friendship of one or two baronets and several lords’ sons. It was long, however, before he advanced himself beyond the rather undignified status of a ‘hanger-on.’ His friends and comrades were very affectionate--with the regiment--but they were not so fond of him in town; nor did they help him into society, or get him invitations to their homes. But as time passed, and he gained promotion and seniority, his persistent efforts gradually achieved a certain success. He now took a prominent part in regimental