‘Nothing less likely--the day is gone by when Englishmen were advanced to places of high honour and trust in the Austrian army. There are no more field-marshals like Nugent than major-generals like O’Connell. I might be made a Rittmeister, and if I lived long enough, and was not superannuated, a major; but there my ambition must cease.’ ‘And you are content with that prospect?’ ‘Of course I am not. I go back to it with something little short of despair.’ ‘Why go back, then?’ ‘Tell me what else to do--tell me what other road in life to take--show me even one alternative.’ The silence that now succeeded lasted several minutes, each immersed in his own thoughts, and each doubtless convinced how little presumption he had to advise or counsel the other. ‘Do you know, O’Shea,’ cried Kearney, ‘I used to fancy that this Austrian life of yours was a mere caprice--that you took “a cast,” as we call it in the hunting-field, amongst those fellows to see what they were like and what sort of an existence was theirs--but that being your aunt’s heir, and with a snug estate that must one day come to you, it was a mere “lark,” and not to be continued beyond a year or two?’ ‘Not a bit of it. I never presumed to think I should be my aunt’s heir--and now less than ever. Do you know, that even the small pension she has allowed me hitherto is now about to be withdrawn, and I shall be left to live on my pay?’ ‘How much does that mean?’ ‘A few pounds more or less than you pay for your saddle-horse at livery at Dycers’.’ ‘You don’t mean that?’ ‘I do mean it, and even that beggarly pittance is stopped when I am on my leave; so that at this moment my whole worldly wealth is here,’ and he took from his pocket a handful of loose coin, in which a few gold pieces glittered amidst a mass of discoloured and smooth-looking silver. ‘On my oath, I believe you are the richer man of the two,’ cried Kearney, ‘for except a few half-crowns on my dressing-table, and some coppers, I don’t believe I am master of a coin with the Queen’s image.’ ‘I say, Kearney, what a horrible take-in we should prove to mothers with daughters to marry!’ ‘Not a bit of it. You may impose upon any one else--your tailor, your bootmaker, even the horsy gent that jobs your cabriolet, but you’ll never cheat the mamma who has the daughter on sale.’ Gorman could not help laughing at the more than ordinary irritability with which these words were spoken, and charged him at last with having uttered a personal experience.