a
reading-desk, upon which a paper was spread, which the man, with his
hands behind his head, was perusing.

A little farther on there was a cat asleep, and just above it a canary
in a cage twittering away as if in friendly discourse with the animal
below. But for the most part the windows of the great barracks were
unoccupied, and the place looked deserted and desolate in the extreme.

Richard walked on, thinking of what he was not long before, and of his
present position through one turn of fortune's wheel. What was to
happen next, now that he had been disappointed and his project had come
to naught?

Right on before him there was another gateway, across which, in the soft
summer evening light, a second sentry in white flannel jacket passed,
with the light gleaming upon his triangular bayonet.

One moment he thought of turning back; the next he had rejected this,
and advanced. He had taken his course, and he must go on.

The second sentry looked harder at him as he passed an open doorway from
out of which came a puff of hot bad tobacco smoke; but the man seemed to
pay no further heed as he went on and now found himself at what was
evidently the front of the barracks, and directly afterward a burst of
music fell upon his ears.

It sounded very welcome, and, walking in the direction, he passed a
couple of large open windows, from whence came the clatter of silver
upon china and the buzz of voices accompanied by sundry odours of an
agreeable nature, which reminded him of the fact that he had eaten
nothing since his hurried breakfast.

"The mess-room," he said to himself.

The officers were dining; and the band was playing selections during
that function.

Richard passed on, thinking, and with his spirits going down like the
mercury in a weather-glass before a storm.

In a short time he, in all probability, would have been an officer
attached to some regiment, while now he was a fugitive and a vagabond on
the face of the earth.

"Not even fit to be a private," he said to himself; and then, attracted
by the music, he turned and walked back, to stop between the two
windows, listening, and with the smell of the dinner making him forget
his troubles in baser thoughts as his mouth began to water.

Then the chink of glasses began to mingle with the buzz of voices.

"Taking wine," muttered the listener; and he wondered whether it was
Hock.

_Pop_!

"Champagne or Moselle," he muttered; and the report of a s