“Oh, it was at Southsea some time ago, when I was quite pretty and slender and active. One night I danced seven or eight times with an uncommonly nice girl: the next morning her father waited on me--a blood-thirsty looking old brigand--and demanded my intentions.” “‘My intentions, sir,’ I said, ‘were to give your daughter a very pleasant evening’ (he enacted the part), I placed my hand on my heart, and bowing most profoundly, said, ‘And I flatter myself that I succeeded.’ I suppose there is no hope for Jones--no choking him off?” “No,” returned another man, “I know Jones well; you might as well try to choke a pig with melted butter.” “He won’t believe that love is the wine of life, and marriage the headache in the morning,” snarled the Major. “Jones was always a fool,” remarked a third. This anti-matrimonial discussion made George rather uncomfortable; he had been among these ribald scoffers himself, but that was in old days--and before he knew Betty. Captain La Touche was senior captain in the Royal Musketeers, and George’s special chum, and during his absence he had looked after his quarters, and his stud, but now, to his intense disgust, his friend’s polo ponies, his tandem cart and harness, and racing saddles, were all advertised in the _Pioneer_! Only one animal was reserved, and Captain La Touche noted with considerable trepidation, that “Barkis,” though not a polo pony, had the reputation of being a capital ladies’ hack. Cosmo La Touche was a shrewd man, and could put two and two together better than most people; his friend had his pay, and no debts, and a small private income; he could easily manage to keep a couple of ponies and pay his mess bill. Why was he reading so hard with the regimental monshee? Reading in the muggy, rainy weather, grinding for the Higher Standard, late and early, whilst he himself dozed peacefully under the punka with a French novel within reach; and why was George Holroyd, who was always supposed to be wrapped up in the regiment, and nothing but the regiment, and who set his face against detachment duty, the depôt or hill classes, now so desperately eager to get an appointment _anywhere_, so long as it brought him in rupees. Of course there was a lady in the case, and he boldly taxed him with his guilty secret. To his anger and astonishment, George admitted that such was positively the fact, admitted it triumphantly. “And are you engaged?” he demanded sternly. “No.” “Oh, come then, it’s not so bad after all!” “I only wish it was so bad, as you call it.” “Then why are you not? Won’t she have you?” enquired the other with a jeer in his eyes. “Because I have only fifty pounds a year and my pay, as long as my mother lives, and, out in this climate, poverty and screwing is the very devil. If I can pass and get some staff appointment we shall manage all right.” “Is she pretty? But I need not ask _you_; of course she is an angel,” said Captain La Touche ferociously.