. During the hard
times which intervened between these gleams of opulence, the pair
roughed it uncomplainingly as best they might. The major would
sometimes create a fictitious splendour by dilating upon the beauties of
Castle Dunross, in county Mayo, which is the headquarters of all the
Clutterbucks. "We'll go and live there some day, me boy," he would say,
slapping his comrade on the back. "It will be mine from the dungeons
forty foot below the ground, right up, bedad, to the flagstaff from
which the imblem of loyalty flaunts the breeze." At these speeches the
simple-minded German used to rub his great red hands together with
satisfaction, and feel as pleased as though he had actually been
presented with the fee simple of the castle in question.

"Have you had your letter?" the major asked with interest, rolling a
cigarette between his fingers. The German was expecting his quarterly
remittance from his friends at home, and they were both anxiously
awaiting it.

Von Baumser shook his head.

"Bad luck to them! they should have sent a wake ago. You should do what
Jimmy Towler did. You didn't know Towler, of the Sappers? When he and
I were souldiering in Canada he was vexed at the allowance which he had
from ould Sir Oliver, his uncle, not turning up at the right time.
'Ged, Toby,' he says to me, 'I'll warm the old rascal up.' So he sits
down and writes a letter to his uncle, in which he told him his
unbusiness-like ways would be the ruin of them, and more to the same
effect. When Sir Oliver got the letter he was in such a divil's own
rage, that while he was dictating a codicil to his will he tumbled off
the chair in a fit, and Jimmy came in for a clean siven thousand a
year."

"Dat was more dan he deserved," the German remarked. "But you--how do
you stand for money?"

Major Clutterbuck took ten sovereigns out of his trouser pocket and
placed them upon the table. "You know me law," he said; "I never, on
any consideration, break into these. You can't sit down to play cards
for high stakes with less in your purse, and if I was to change one, be
George! they'd all go like a whiff o' smoke. The Lord knows when I'd
get a start again then. Bar this money I've hardly a pinny."

"Nor me," said Von Baumser despondently, slapping his pockets.

"Niver mind, me boy! What's in the common purse, I wonder?"

He looked up at a little leather bag which hung from a brass nail on the
wall. In flush times they we