Some of the youngsters drank wine again and again with our young volunteer, a spirit of mischief being combined with their hospitality. To "screw a Johnny Raw" was one of the chief practical jokes at a mess-table then, as it is at some few still; but Middleton's influence soon repressed them. The cloth removed, the regimental mull, a gigantic ram's head, the horns of which were tipped with cairngorms and massive silver settings, was placed before the president, and was passed down the table from left to right, according to the custom of all Scottish messes. The mull was the farewell gift of Lord Rohallion, and the gallant ram was the flower of all that he could procure in Carrick. The proposed expeditions to Spain and Holland soon formed the staple topics for discourse and surmise; but none present had the slightest idea on which of these the regiment might be despatched. When Quentin looked round that long and glittering mess-table, and saw so many handsome, pleasant, and jovial fellows, all heedless and full of high spirits, who welcomed him among them, spoke cheeringly of his prospects and drank to his success, he felt a pang on reflecting that he must owe it to the death in battle of one at least among them! There was plenty of laughter, fun, and joking. Many of those present were more or less dandies; but the military Dundreary, the--to use a vulgar phrase--"heavy swell," who affects the style of Charles Mathews in "Used Up," was unknown in the days of the long, long war with France, for men joined the army to become soldiers indeed. Their predecessors were usually killed in action, and they had the immediate prospect of finding themselves before the bravest enemy in the world. The solemn regimental snob, or yawning yahoo, whose private affairs became so "urgent" in the Crimea; the parvenu Lancer or lisping Hussar, cold, sarcastic, and unimpressionable, are entirely the growth of the piping times of peace, and to them the stern advice of the old officer of other times, "Be ever ready with your pistol," is meaningless now. "I joined the service as a volunteer," said Rowland Askerne, the burly captain of the Grenadiers--as his massive gold rings announced him--turning to Quentin. "Were you long one?" "Longer than I quite relished," replied Askerne, laughing. "Indeed!" said Quentin, anxiously. "Yes--four years; and long years they seemed to me." "On foreign service?"