JERVOISE. (_Slowly_.) Engaged--engaged! Bless my soul! I'm getting an old man! Little Minnie Threegan engaged. It was only the other day I went home with them in the _Surat_--no, the _Massilia_--and she was crawling about on her hands and knees among the _ayahs_. 'Used to call me the '_Tick Tack Sahib_' because I showed her my watch. And that was in Sixty-seven--no, Seventy. Good God, how time flies! I'm an old man. I remember when Threegan married Miss Derwent--daughter of old Hooky Derwent--but that was before your time. And so the little baby's engaged to have a little baby of her own! Who's the other fool? MACKESY. Gadsby of the Pink Hussars. JERVOISE. 'Never met him. Threegan lived in debt, married in debt, and'll die in debt. 'Must be glad to get the girl off his hands. BLAYNE. Gaddy has money--lucky devil. Place at Home, too. DOONE. He comes of first-class stock. 'Can't quite understand his being caught by a Colonel's daughter, and (_looking cautiously round room_) Black Infantry at that! No offence to you, Blayne. BLAYNE. (_Stiffly_.) Not much, tha-anks. CURTISS. (_Quoting motto of Irregular Moguls_.) 'We are what we are,' eh, old man? But Gaddy was such a superior animal as a rule. Why didn't he go Home and pick his wife there? MACKESY. They are all alike when they come to the turn into the straight. About thirty a man begins to get sick of living alone-- CURTISS. And of the eternal muttony-chop in the morning. DOONE. It's dead goat as a rule, but go on, Mackesy. MACKESY. If a man's once taken that way nothing will hold him. Do you remember Benoit of your service, Doone? They transferred him to Tharanda when his time came, and he married a platelayer's daughter, or something of that kind. She was the only female about the place. DOONE. Yes, poor brute. That smashed Benoit's chances of promotion altogether. Mrs. Benoit used to ask: 'Was you goin' to the dance this evenin'?' CURTISS. Hang it all! Gaddy hasn't married beneath him. There's no tar-brush in the family, I suppose. JERVOISE. Tar-brush! Not an anna. You young fellows talk as though the man was doing the girl an honour in marrying her. You're all too conceited--nothing's good enough for you. BLAYNE. Not even an empty Club, a dam' bad dinner at the Judge's, and a Station as sickly as a hospital. You're quite right. We're a set of Sybarites. DOONE. Luxurious dogs, wallowing in--- CURTISS. Prickly heat between the shoulders. I'm covered with it. Let's hope Beora will be cooler. BLAYNE. Whew! Are _you_ ordered into camp, too? I thought the Gunners had a clean sheet. CURTISS. No, worse luck. Two cases yesterday--one died--and if we have a third, out we go. Is there any shooting at Beora, Doone? DOONE. The country's under water, except the patch by the Grand Trunk Road. I was there yesterday, looking at a bund, and came across four poor devils in their last stage. It's rather bad from here to Kuchara.