"With double-barrelled rifles, at two hundred yards' distance, each man posted behind a tree, and dodging every way to dodge the other's fire. Well, I would meet him that way if he wished it. I have asked the Colonel to mess." "To mess?" "Yes." "That fellow! What will the Colonel and others think? Your reason is, I suppose, to keep up a connecting link with the Chateau?" "Perhaps so," said Roland, wearily; and, sooth to say, that was his sole reason. "Well, if with the rental of Ardgowrie, you can't----" "Please not to speak of Ardgowrie," said Roland impatiently, as he thrust himself into his shell-jacket; "there go the drums for mess." It was impossible that Aurelia could have any regard, even, amenity, for this horrible American cousin, the Colonel; yet if she had, Roland felt that the changed circumstances of his own fortune tied up his tongue and would render his attentions an interference; yet it was scarcely possible for him to look on such a dangler or admirer with total indifference. The Colonel, of whom we shall have more to relate anon, came duly to mess, where his appearance and bearing caused some speculation, and not a little secret mirth among Roland's brother officers, who were all men of a very good style and tone. Lean, wiry, and powerfully made, he was above the middle height, had sharp aquiline features of an exaggerated type, that might not have been bad but for a chronic expression of vulgar suspicion and 'cuteness that played about his eyes, giving him a rather hangdog look; moreover, he had lost three front teeth in a row in Arkansas. He was closely shaven all save a long square goatee imperial that quivered when he spoke. Then he had a nervous way of clutching his hat and banging it against his thigh, with a curious but unmeaning energy. His clothes were loosely made, and he wore enormous cuffs, collar and studs. Every way, he looked, as Logan said, "like a man you would rather drink with than fight with, any day." The Colonel had of course the usual American ideas about equality, and "the sovereign people," with considerable contempt for the little island, from whence "the Britishers came." Doubtless he had never seen such a dinner-table us the mess of the Royals before, with all its massive and magnificent silver trophies, epergnes, and goblets--even the White House could not equal it; thus his utter bewilderment excited as much amusement as his _gaucherie_, for he picked his teeth with a silver fork, rinsed his mouth with the contents of his finger-glass, and so forth; but he made good use of his time in more ways than one, as we shall show. "Strike me ugly, but this is a fine set of fixings! and that one in particular," he added, tapping with his knife a magnificent vase presented to the corps by its colonel, the late Duke of Kent.