"I should be glad of at least four more officers to each company, and at one time thought of writing to Lord Beresford to ask him to supply me with some, but I came to the conclusion that we had better leave matters as they were. In the first place young officers would know nothing of their work, and nothing of me; and in the second place, if they were men of good family they would not like serving under officers who have been raised from the ranks; and lastly, if they became discontented, they might render the men so. We have done very fairly at present, and we had better go on as we are; and when I get a sufficient number of trained men to furnish a full supply of non-commissioned officers, I shall do better than with commissioned ones, for the men are of course carefully selected, and I know them to be trustworthy, whereas those they sent me might be idle, or worse than useless." "You spake like King Solomon, Terence," O'Grady said; "not that he can have known anything whatever about military matters." A roar of laughter greeted this very doubtful compliment. "Thank you, O'Grady," Terence said. "That is one of the prettiest speeches I have heard for a long time. I shall know where to come for a character." "You are right there, Terence; but you may live a good many years before you get a chance of calling a whole British army under arms, as you did at Salamanca." Terence was at once assailed with a storm of questions, for with the exception of O'Grady, no one had suspected the share that he and Dicky Ryan had had in that affair. Terence knew that the latter had kept the secret, for he had asked him only two or three days before, and he therefore assumed an expression of innocence. "What on earth do you mean, O'Grady?" "What do I mane? Why, that somehow or other you were at the bottom of that shindy when all the troops were turned out on a false alarm." "Really, O'Grady, that is too bad. You know that every trick that was played at Athlone was your suggestion, and as we never could find out how that alarm originated, of course you put it down to me, whereas it is just as likely to have been your own work. Colonel Corcoran knows that Dicky and I were in the mess-room at the convent at the time when the alarm broke out." "That was so," the colonel agreed, "for I know that you were talking to me when Hoolan ran in and told us that there was a row in the town. On what do you base your suspicions, O'Grady?" "Just upon me knowledge of the two lads, Colonel. Faith, there never was a piece of mischief afloat that they were not mixed up with." "If that is all you have to say, O'Grady," Terence replied, "I should advise you not to go hunting for mares' nests again. I know that you can see as far into a brick wall as most people, but you cannot see what is going on on the other side."