Mignon; or, Bootles' Baby

A Novelette
By J. S. Winter
AUTHOR OF “CAVALRY LIFE” AND “REGIMENTAL LEGENDS”
ILLUSTRATED
Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most useful , after all Dr. Johnson
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
1885
It was considerably after midnight when one of three officers seated at a whist-table in the mess-room of the Cavalry Barracks at Idleminster, where the Scarlet Lancers were quartered, called out, “Bootles, come and take a hand—there’s a good chap.”
Captain Algernon Ferrers, more commonly known as “Bootles,” looked up.
“I don’t mind if I do,” he said, rising and moving towards them. “What do you want me to do? Who’s my partner?”
The three other men stared at one another in surprise, for Bootles was one of the best whist-players in the regiment, and in an ordinary way would as soon have thought of counting honors as of settling the questions of partners other than by cutting, except in the case of a revenge.