colonel sir thomas woolrych, k.c.b. (retired list), was a soldier of the old school, much attached to pipe-clay and purchase, and with a low opinion of competitive examinations, the first six books of euclid, the local military centres, the territorial titles of regiments, the latest regulation pattern in half-dress buttons, and most other confounded new-fangled radical fal-lal and trumpery in general. sir thomas believed as firmly in the wisdom of our ancestors as he distrusted the wisdom of our nearest descendants, now just attaining to years of maturity and indiscretion. especially had he a marked dislike for this nasty modern shopkeeping habit of leaving all your loose money lying idly at your banker's, and paying everybody with a dirty little bit of crumpled paper, instead of pulling out a handful of gold, magnificently, from your trousers pocket, and flinging the sovereigns boldly down before you upon the counter like an officer and a gentleman. why should you let one of those bloated, overfed, lazy banker-fellows grow rich out of borrowing your money from you for nothing, without so much as a thank-you, and lending it out again to some other poor devil of a tradesman (probably in difficulties) at seven per cent. on short discount? no, no; that was not the way sir thomas woolrych had been[pg 319] accustomed to live when he was an ensign (sub-lieutenant they positively call it nowadays) at ahmednuggur, in the north-west provinces. in those days, my dear sir, a man drew his monthly screw by pay-warrant, took the rupees in solid cash, locked them up carefully in the desk in his bungalow, helped himself liberally to them while they lasted, and gave iou's for any little trifle of cards or horses he might happen to have let himself in for meanwhile with his brother-officers. iou's are of course a gentlemanly and recognized form of monetary engagement, but for bankers' cheques sir thomas positively felt little less than contempt and loathing.
nevertheless, in his comfortable villa in the park at cheltenham (called futteypoor lodge, after that famous engagement during the mutiny which gave the colonel his regiment and his k.c.b.-ship) he stood one evening looking curiously at his big devonport, and muttered to himself with more than one most military oath, "hanged if i don't think i shall positively be compelled to patronize these banker-fellows after all. somebody must have been helping himself again to some of my sovereigns."
sir thomas was not by nature a suspicious man—he was too frank and open-hearted himself to think ill easily of others—but he couldn't avoid feeling certain that somebody had been tampering unjustifiably with the contents of his devonport. he counted the rows of sovereigns over once more, very carefully; then he checked the number taken out by the entry in his pocket-book; and then he leaned back in his chair with a puzzled look, took a meditative puff or two at the stump of his cigar, and blew out the smoke, in a long curl that left a sort of pout upon his heavily moustached lip as soon as he had finished. not a doubt in the world about it—somebody must have helped himself again to a dozen sovereigns.
it was a hateful thing to put a watch upon your servants and dependents, but sir thomas felt he must really do it.[pg 320] he reckoned up the long rows a third time with military precision, entered the particulars once more most accurately in his pocket-book, sighed a deep sigh of regret at the distasteful occupation, and locked up the devonport at last with the air of a man who resigns himself unwillingly to a most unpleasant duty. then he threw away the fag-end of the smoked-out cigar, and went up slowly to dress for dinner.
sir thomas's household consisted entirely of himself and his nephew harry, for he had never been married, and he regarded all womankind alike from afar off, with a quaint, respectful, old-world chivalry; but he made a point of dressing scrupulously every day for dinner, even when alone, as a decorous formality due to himself, his servants, society, the military profession, and the convenances in general. if he and his nephew dined together they dressed for one another; if they dined separately they dressed all the same, for the sake of the institution. when a man once consents to eat his evening meal in a blue tie and a morning cutaway, there's no drawing a line until you finally find him an advanced republican and an accomplice of those dreadful war office people who are bent upon allowing the service to go to the devil. if colonel sir thomas woolrych, k.c.b., had for a single night been guilty of such abominable laxity, the whole fabric of society would have tottered to its base, and gods and footmen would have felt instinctively that it was all up with the british constitution.
"harry," sir thomas said, as soon they sat down to dinner together, "are you going out anywhere this evening, my boy?"
harry looked up a little surlily, and answered after a moment's hesitation, "why, yes, uncle, i thought—i thought of going round and having a game of billiards with tom whitmarsh."
sir thomas cleared his throat, and hemmed dubiously.[pg 321] "in that case," he said at last, after a short pause, "i think i'll go down to the club myself and have a rubber. wilkins, the carriage at half-past nine. i'm sorry, harry, you're going out this evening."
"why so, uncle? it's only just round to the whitmarshes', you know."
sir thomas shut one eye and glanced with the other at the light through his glass of sherry, held up between finger and thumb critically and suspiciously. "a man may disapprove in toto of the present system of competitive examinations for the army," he said slowly; "for my part, i certainly do, and i make no secret of it; admitting a lot of butchers and bakers and candlestick makers plump into the highest ranks of the service: no tone, no character, no position, no gentlemanly feeling; a great mistake—a great mistake; i told them so at the time. i said to them, 'gentlemen, you are simply ruining the service.' but they took no notice of me; and what's the consequence? competitive examination has been the ruin of the service, exactly as i told them. began with that; then abolition of purchase; then local centres; then that abominable strap with the slip buckle—there, there, harry, upon my soul, my boy, i can't bear to think of it. but a man may be opposed, as i said, to the whole present system of competitive examination, and yet, while that system still unfortunately continues to exist (that is to say, until a european war convinces all sensible people of the confounded folly of it), he may feel that his own young men, who are reading up for a direct commission, ought to be trying their hardest to get as much of this nonsensical humbug into their heads as possible during the time just before their own examinations. now, harry, i'm afraid you're not reading quite as hard as you ought to be doing. the crammer's all very well in his way, of course, but depend upon it, the crammer by himself won't get you through it. what's needed is private study."[pg 322]
harry turned his handsome dark eyes upon his uncle—a very dark, almost gipsy-looking face altogether, harry's—and answered deprecatingly, "well, sir, and don't i go in for private study? didn't i read up samson agonistes all by myself right through yesterday?"
"i don't know what samson something-or-other is," the old gentleman replied testily. "what the dickens has samson something-or-other got to do with the preparation of a military man, i should like to know, sir?"
"it's the english literature book for the exam., you know," harry answered, with a quiet smile. "we've got to get it up, you see, with all the allusions and what-you-may-call-its, for direct commission. it's a sort of a play, i think i should call it, by john milton."
"oh, it's the english literature, is it?" the old colonel went on, somewhat mollified. "in my time, harry, we weren't expected to know anything about english literature. the articles of war, and the officer's companion, by authority, that was the kind of literature we used to be examined in. but nowadays they expect a soldier to be read up in samson something-or-other, do they really? well, well, let them have their fad, let them have their fad, poor creatures. still, harry, i'm very much afraid you're wasting your time, and your money also. if i thought you only went to the whitmarshes' to see miss milly, now, i shouldn't mind so much about it. miss milly is a very charming, sweet young creature, certainly—extremely pretty, too, extremely pretty—i don't deny it. you're young yet to go making yourself agreeable, my boy, to a pretty girl like that; you ought to wait for that sort of thing till you've got your majority, or at least, your company—a young man reading for direct commission has no business to go stuffing his head cram full with love and nonsense. no, no; he should leave it all free for fortification, and the general instructions, and samson something-or-other, if soldiers can't be made nowadays[pg 323] without english literature. but still, i don't so much object to that, i say—a sweet girl, certainly, miss milly—what i do object to is your knocking about so much at billiard-rooms, and so forth, with that young fellow whitmarsh. not a very nice young fellow, or a good companion for you either, harry. i'm afraid, i'm afraid, my boy, he makes you spend a great deal too much money."
"i've never yet had to ask you to increase my allowance, sir," the young man answered haughtily, with a curious glance sideways at his uncle.
"wilkins," sir thomas put in, with a nod to the butler, "go down and bring up a bottle of the old madeira. harry, my boy, don't let us discuss questions of this sort before the servants. my boy, i've never kept you short of money in any way, i hope; and if i ever do, i trust you'll tell me of it, tell me of it immediately."
harry's dark cheeks burned bright for a moment, but he answered never a single word, and went on eating his dinner silently, with a very hang-dog look indeed upon his handsome features.
