"Be careful!"
"But this makes twice in ten days. It's pushing a man too hard altogether!"
"Not a bit of it," Letcher assured him cheerfully. "You're too devilish fond of your own neck, my lad; and I know it too devilish well to be come over by that talk." He chuckled to himself. "How's the beauty down at the cottage?"
"I don't know," Mr. Whitmore answered sulkily. "Is Plinlimmon there?"
"No, he's not; and you ought to know he's not. Where have you been, all day?"
The curate was silent.
"He'll be down again on Saturday, though. Leave of absence is going cheap, just now. I've an idea that our marching orders must be about due. Maybe I'll be able to run down myself, though my father hadn't the luck to be a friend of the Colonel's. If I don't, you're to keep your eye lifting, and report."
"Is there really a chance of the order coming?" asked Mr. Whitmore, with a shake in his low voice.
"Dissemble your joy, my friend! When it comes, I shall call on you for fifty. Meanwhile I tell you to keep your eye lifting. The battalion's raw, yet. About the order, it's only my guesswork, and before we sail you may yet do the christening."
"It's damnable!"