“Ten years, sir.” “Why, how's this? You don't look a day over forty.” “Forty-two, sir. Joined the band at home as a boy. Sixteenth Lancers, sir.” “What's your name?” “Hinge, sir. Robert Hinge, sir. Son of Bob Hinge, sir. Tattenham Fancy. Champion of the light-weights years back, sir.” “Oh! What have you been getting into trouble about?” “Beg your pardon, sir. Mustn't talk about that, sir. Discipline, sir. Can see as you're an officer. That ought to be enough, sir.” “Quite enough. Drink my health, _if_ there's anything fit to drink it in. You don't object, Breschia?” “Not at all,” the lieutenant answered. “You have done with him? Very good. Go. And let me hear of you no more, or I shall report you. To your general. Do you hear?” The man saluted and went out. “He is so good, and so stupid--that individual there,” said Breschia, gladly plunging back into a more familiar language than English, though I could see he was proud of having acquitted himself so well in that tongue. “He is so stupid and so good, but I do nothing but laugh at him. But Rodetzsky is a martinet, and if he were here just now the man would be in trouble.” “What has he been doing?” I asked. “He has been smuggling tobacco to the prisoners,” Breschia answered, and all of a sudden I found my heart beating like a hammer. Was this the man, I wondered, who had shown compassion to Miss Ros-sano's hapless father? And was he therefore the man of all others whom I needed to lay hands on? If that were so it seemed nothing less than a providence that the man should be English, for my ignorance of all the patois dialects of the country, and even of its main language, made the speech of the Austrian soldiers a sealed book to me.