These young officers were not very busy; they were occupied in, perhaps, the most wearisome of all the duties that devolve on the dragoon, and their task consisted of lounging about a troop-stable, attired in undress uniform, to watch the men cleaning and “doing up” their respective horses. They could but smoke, and talk over the morning’s field-day to while away the time. Neither of them was encumbered with an undue proportion of brains--neither of them could have engaged in a much deeper discussion than that which they now carried on; yet they did their duty scrupulously, they loved the regiment as a home, and looked upon the B Troop as their family; and although their thoughts ran a little too much on dress, fox-hunting, driving, and other less harmless vanities, they were, after all, good comrades and tolerably harmless members of society. Cornet Capon’s ideas oozed out slowly, and only under great pressure, so he smoked half a cigar in solemn silence ere he resumed, with a wise look-- “There’s something at the bottom of all this about the Major, Clank. Did you notice where he halted us after the charge--all amongst that broken ground at the back of the Heath? We shall have half the horses in the troop lame to-morrow.” “Old ‘Trumpeter’ was lame to-day,” returned Clank, with a grim smile, “and that’s why D’Orville was so savage with me for riding him. You’re right, Capon. The Major’s amiss--there’s a screw loose somewhere, I’m sure of it, and I’m sorry for it.” “He lost ‘a cracker’ at Newmarket last week, I _know_,” said Capon, thoughtfully; “I shouldn’t wonder if he was obliged to go--let me see--Lipstrap’ll get the majority, and I shall get my lieutenancy. Well, I shall be sorry to lose him, though he _does_ blow me up.” “Pooh! man, it’s not _that_,” rejoined Clank, who was a man of sentimental turn of mind, and kept Tommy Moore in his barrack-room. “You young ones are always thinking about racing. I’ve known D’Orville hit a deal harder than that, and never wince. Why, I recollect he played a civilian, at Calcutta, for his commission and appointments against the other’s race-horses and a bungalow he had up in the hills. ’Gad, sir, he won the stud and the crib too--and not only that, but I landed a hundred gold mohurs by backing his new lot for the Governor-General’s Cup, and went and stayed a fortnight with him at his country-house besides--best billet _I_ ever had--furniture and fittings and fixings all just as t’other fellow left them. No--D’Orville’s as game as a pebble about money--it isn’t _that_.” Cornet Capon opened his eyes, smoked sedulously for about five minutes, and then asked Clank, “What the devil there was to bother a fellow, if it wasn’t money?”