Roger had left his companions earlier than he usually did, in order to honour me, his guest. The new butler paraded oysters, and down we sat _tête-à-tête_. When supper was removed, and each had fabricated a red-hot tumbler from the tea-kettle, the quartermaster stretched his long legs across the hearth-rug, and with great apparent solicitude inquired into all that had befallen me since I had assumed the shoulder-knot and taken to the trade of war. "Humph!"--he observed--"two steps in three years; not bad considering there was neither money nor interest. D--it! I often wish that Biddy was a boy. Never was such a time to purchase on. More regiments to be raised, and promotion will be at a discount. Sir Hugh Haughton married a stockbroker's widow with half a plum, and paid in the two thousand I had lent him. Zounds! if Biddy were a boy, and that money well applied, I would have her a regiment in a twelvemonth." "Phew!" I thought to myself. "I see what the old fellow is driving at." "There never would be such another opportunity," Roger continued. "An increased force will produce an increased difficulty in effecting it. Men will be worth their own weight in money; and d--me, a fellow who could raise a few, might have any thing he asked for." I remarked that, with some influence and a good round sum, recruits might still be found. "Ay, easy enough, and not much money either, if one knew how to go about the thing. Get two or three smart chaps; let them watch fairs and patterns, mind their hits when the bumpkins got drunk, and find out when fellows were hiding from a warrant. D--me, I would raise a hundred, while you would say Jack Robinson. Pay a friendly magistrate; attest the scoundrels before they were sober enough to cry off, bundle them to the regiment next morning; and if a rascal ran away after the commanding officer passed a receipt for him, why all the better, for you could relist him when he came home again." I listened attentively, though in all this the cloven foot appeared. The whole was the plan of a crimp; and, if Roger was not belied, trafficking in "food for powder," had realized more of his wealth than slop-shoes and short measure. During the developement of his project for promotion, the quartermaster and I had found it necessary to replenish frequently, and with the third tumbler Roger came nearer to business. "Often thought it a pity, and often said so in the club, that a fine smashing fellow like you, Terence, had not the stuff to push you on. What the devil signifies family, and blood, and all that balderdash. There's your aunt, worthy woman; but sky-high about a dead captain. D--me, all folly. Were I a young man, I'd get hold of some girl with the wherewithal, and I would double-distance half the highfliers for a colonelcy."