“‘I’m glad I was, then.’
“‘You were a fool,’ he repeated, ‘and what has happened? You fling away two thousand pounds—someone else picks them up.’
“‘So you got it through?’
“‘Of course. What did I tell you? The world is not full of Josephs.’
“And two weeks later one of the officers in my company applied for leave to go home to be married. We were all surprised, as he hadn’t much money—only his pay—and had often been heard to lament the length of his engagement. When someone asked if his grandmother had died and left him a fortune, he blushed awkwardly, and said something about a bit of luck on horses.
“He never rejoined us after his marriage.”
He stopped, and we looked at each other for a moment.
“And you wonder whether what you did was right, or not?”
“Yes; I’ve been wondering that for twelve years, and I shall go on wondering it to the end. If I had given the powder to the sentry instead of to myself I could have spent the end of my life as I should like to spend it. And I don’t know that it would have been wrong. I am inclined to think that the end justifies the means, and, anyhow, the stuff was bound to be got through.”
“But, after all,” I said, “you’ve been happy in the army on the whole?”