We discussed a local beanfeast excursion to Ramsgate, which was to take place the following day; and he brightened up to recall how he had joined a similar trip to Weymouth some years ago. It was his last holiday, in fact. Even now it made him laugh, to remember how old Bill Brixton had gone on that day; and he laughed a little scornfully at the trouble they had taken to enjoy themselves, and the fatigues they endured. Then there came just a touch of his old manner: "I had a little bottle with me and filled it up with a quarte'n o' whisky; and when we was comin' home it seemed to brighten ye up. I says to old Bill, 'Put that to your lips,' I says. So he tried. 'Why, it's whisky!' he says. But that little wouldn't hurt 'n. 'Tis a _lot_ o' whisky you gets for fo'pence! 'Twouldn't have hurt 'n, if he'd took it bottle and all." These monster excursions had never really appealed to Bettesworth's old-fashioned taste. Rather than be cooped up in a train, I remember he used to say, give him a quiet journey on the open road, afoot or by waggon, so that a man may "see the course o' the country," and if he comes to anything interesting, stop and look at it. And now, on his bed, the ill-humour he was displaying that morning vented itself again, in reference to a project he had heard of for another excursion. The Oddfellows' annual fête was at hand; and, he said, with a sneering intonation, "The secretary and some of they" (respectable new-fangled people, he meant) "wanted 'em to go to Portsmouth. So they called a full meetin', an' the meetin'"--ah, I have forgotten the turn of speech. It suggested that these officious persons, interfering to dictate how the working man should take his pleasure, had met with a well-deserved snub, since the excursion was voted down and the customary dinner was to be held. To myself, as to Bettesworth, this seemed the preferable course: "It's really better," I said. Then he, "So _'tis_, sir. It's the old, natural _way_. We _al_ways reckoned to have _one day_ in the year, when we all had holiday. And then everybody could join in--the women with their little childern, and all. 'Tis _nice_...." Mentioning the endeavours of the Colonel and Mr. ---- to get a pension for him, I said, "They're very interested in it." "More so than what I be," he answered. Still, I urged, it was worth trying for; and as for the lost papers, duplicates of them might be obtained, if we knew the regiment. I was saying this, when with a sort of pride, though still irritably, the old man broke in, "I can tell ye _all_ that: regiment, an' regimental number, and officers, and all." At that I asked what was his regiment?