"There, Terence, that is a feather in your cap. Sir Arthur is not given to praise unduly, and it is seldom that an ensign gets into general orders. It will do you good some day, perhaps when you least expect it." "I am heartily pleased, my lad," Captain O'Connor said, as he laid his hand upon Terence's shoulder. "I am proud of you. I have never seen my own name in general orders, but I am heartily glad to see yours. Bedad, when I think that a couple of months ago you were running wild and getting into all sorts of mischief, it seems hard to believe that you should not only be one of us, but have got your name into general orders." "And all for nothing, father," Terence said. "I call it a beastly shame that just because I thought of using that lugger I should be cracked up more than the others." "It was not only that, though, Terence; those guns that crippled the lugger could not have been fired if you had not thought of putting rope round them, and that French frigate would never have left you alone had not you suggested to the major how to throw dust into their eyes. No, my lad, you thoroughly deserve the credit that you have got, and I am sure that there is not a man in the regiment who would not say the same." "Gintlemen," Captain O'Grady said, solemnly, "we will drink to the health of Ensign Terence O'Connor; more power to his elbow!" And the toast was duly honoured. "It is mighty good of me to propose it," O'Grady went on, after Terence had said a few words of thanks, "because I have a strong idea that in another two or three minutes I should have made just the same suggestion that you did, me lad. I knew at the time that there was a plan I wanted to propose, but sorra a word came to me lips. I was just brimful with it when you came up and took the words out of me mouth. If I had spoken first it is a brevet majority I had got, sure enough." "You must be quicker next time, O'Grady," the adjutant said, when the laughter had subsided; "as you say, you have missed a good thing by your slowness. I am afraid your brain was still a little muddled by your indulgence the night before." "Just the contrary, me boy; I feel that if I had taken just one glass more of the cratur me brain would have been clearer and I should have been to the fore. But I bear you no malice, Terence. Maybe the ideas would not have managed to straighten themselves out until after we had had to haul down the flag, and then it would have been too late to have been any good. It has happened to me more than once before that I have just thought of a good thing when it was too late."