the grim, wickedish, half-smile, with which an old stager
recalls, in the prowess of his juniors, the pleasant devilment of his
own youth.

'The cool, old hand, Sir, too much for your new fireworker,' remarked
Bligh, cynically.

'Tut, Sir, this O'Flaherty has not been three weeks among us,'
spluttered out the general, who was woundily jealous of the honour of
his corps. 'There are lads among our fireworkers who would whip Nutter
through the liver while you'd count ten!'

'They're removing the--the--(a long pause) the _body_, eh?' said Bligh.
'Hey! no, see, by George, he's walking but he's _hurt_.'

'I'm mighty well pleased it's no worse, Sir,' said the general, honestly
glad.

'They're helping him into the coach--long legs the fellow's got,'
remarked Bligh.

'These--things--Sir--are--are--very--un--pleasant,' said the general,
adjusting the focus of the glass, and speaking slowly--though no Spanish
dandy ever relished a bull-fight more than he an affair of the kind. He
and old Bligh had witnessed no less than five--not counting this--in
which officers of the R.I.A. were principal performers, from the same
sung post of observation. The general, indeed, was conventionally
supposed to know nothing of them, and to reprobate the practice itself
with his whole soul. But somehow, when an affair of the sort came off on
the Fifteen Acres, he always happened to drop in, at the proper moment,
upon his old crony, the colonel, and they sauntered into the
demi-bastion together, and quietly saw what was to be seen. It was Miss
Becky Chattesworth who involved the poor general in this hypocrisy. It
was not exactly her money; it was her force of will and unflinching
audacity that established her control over an easy, harmless, plastic
old gentleman.

'They are unpleasant--devilish unpleasant--somewhere in the body, I
think, hey? they're stooping again, stooping again--eh?--_plaguy_
unpleasant, Sir (the general was thinking how Miss Becky's tongue would
wag, and what she might not even _do_, if O'Flaherty died). Ha! on they
go again, and a--Puddock--getting in--and that's Toole. He's not so much
hurt--eh? He helped himself a good deal, you saw; but (taking heart of
grace) when a quarrel does occur, Sir, I believe, after all, 'tis better
off the stomach at once--a few passes--you know--or the crack of a
pistol--who's that got in--the priest--hey? by George!'

'Awkward if he dies a Papist,' said cynical old Bligh--the R.I.A. were