and bulged
boots the men were wearing.

After a week of sharp drill Terence was satisfied, and proposed to
Ryan that they should now ride over to Portalegre, and pay a visit
to their friends of the Fusiliers and, accordingly, the next day
they went over. They were most heartily received.

"Sure, Terence, I knew well enough that you and Dicky Ryan would be
back here, before long. And so you have taken him from us! Well, it
is a relief to the regiment; and I only hope that now he is an
adjutant he will learn manners, and behave with a little more
discretion than he has ever shown before. How you could have
saddled yourself with such a hare-brained lad is more than I can
imagine."

"That is all very well, O'Grady," Ryan laughed, "but it is a
question of the pot calling the kettle black; only in this case the
pot is a good deal blacker than the kettle. There may be some
excuse for a subaltern like me, but none for a war-scarred veteran
like yourself."

"Dick will do very well, O'Grady," Terence said. "I can tell you he
sits in his tent, and does his office work, as steadily as if he
had been at it all his life; and if you had seen him drilling a
battalion, you would be delighted. It is just jealousy that makes
you run him down, O'Grady--you were too lazy to learn Portuguese,
yourself."

"Is it lazy you say that I am, Terence? There is no more active
officer in the regiment, and you know it. As for the heathen
language, it is not fit for an honest tongue. They ought to have
sent over a supply of grammars and dictionaries, and taught the
whole nation to speak English.

"When did you get back?"

"A week ago; but we have been too busy drilling the regiment to
come over, before.

"How are you getting on here, Colonel?"

"We are not getting on at all, O'Connor. It is worse than
stationary we are. They ought to put on double the number of carts
they allow us. Half the time we are on short rations; except wine
which, thank Heaven, the commissariat can buy in the country. It is
evil times that we have fallen upon, and how we shall do, when the
snow begins to fall heavily, is more than I can tell you."

"At any rate, Colonel, from what I hear you are a good deal better
off than the division at Guarda, for you are but a day's march from
the river."

"The carts take two days over it," the colonel said, "and then
bring next to nothing; for the poor bastes that draw them are half
starved, and it is as much as they can