"Tut, tut, lad, don't say a word about age! Doctor O'Flaherty had certified that you are going on for seventeen, which is quite sufficient for me, and at any rate you will see that boyish tricks are out of place in the case of an officer going on for seventeen. Now, your father had best take you down into the town and get you measured for your uniforms at once. You must make them hurry on with his undress clothes, O'Connor. I should not bother about full-dress till we get back again; it is not likely to be wanted, and the lad will soon grow out of them. If there should happen to be full-dress parade in Portugal, Cleary will put him on as officer of the day, or give him some duties that will keep him from parade. We may get the route any day, and the sooner he gets his uniform the better." Two days later Terence took his place on parade as an officer of the regiment. He had witnessed such numberless drills that he had picked up every word of command, knew his proper place in every formation, and fell into the work as readily as if he had been at it for years. He had been heartily congratulated by the officers of the regiment. "I am awfully glad that you are one of us, Terence," Dick Ryan said. "I don't know what we should have done without you. I expect we shall have tremendous fun in Portugal." "I expect we shall, Dick; but we shall have to be careful. We shall be on active service, you see, and from what they say of him I don't think Sir Arthur Wellesley is the sort of man to appreciate jokes." "No, I should say not. Of course, we shall have to draw in a bit. It would not do to set the bells of Lisbon ringing." "I should think not, Dick. Still, I dare say we shall have plenty of fun, and at any rate we are likely, from what they say, to have plenty of fighting. I don't expect the Portuguese will be much good, and as there are forty or fifty thousand Frenchmen in Portugal, we shall have all our work to do, unless they send out a much bigger force than is collecting at Cork. It is a pity that the 10,000 men who have been sent out to Sweden on what my father says is a fool's errand are not going with us instead. We might make a good stand-up fight of it then, whereas I don't see that with only 6,000 or 7,000 we can do much good against Junot's 40,000." "Oh, I dare say we shall get on somehow!" Dick said, carelessly. "Sir Arthur knows what he is about, and it is our turn to do something now. The navy has had it all its own way so far, and it is quite fair that we should do our share. I have a brother in the navy, and the fellows are getting too cheeky altogether. They seem to think that no one can fight but themselves. Except in Egypt we have never had a chance at all of showing we can lick the French just as easily on land as we can at sea." "I hope we shall, Dick. They have certainly had a great deal more practice at it than we have." "Now I think we ought to do something here that they will remember us for before we start, Terence."