“Yes, sir, retired.”
“Brevet rank?”
“Brevet be damned!” said Colonel Manton hotly. “I owe my promotion, sir, if you wish to know, to Waterloo.”
The stranger glanced at him with a curiously sly look, and pinched the arm on which his own fingers rested.
“What!” he said, “were you there?”
“I had the honour, sir,” said the Colonel grandiloquently, “of playing my little part in that Homeric contest.”
“Whose division, hey?”
“Picton’s—Pack’s brigade. You are a little—you will excuse my saying it—particular.”
“Certainly I will, my boy. Wounded—hey?”
A distinct flush suffused the Colonel’s cheek.