“You may talk till you are hoarse, Duff, but I'll not stay in it When once I have settled these two or three matters I have told you of, I'll start for—I don't much care whither. I'll go to Persia, or perhaps to the Yankees.”
“I always keep America for the finish!” said the other. “It is to the rest of the world what the copper hell is to Crockford's,—the last refuge when one walks in broken boots and in low company. But tell me, what have you done to-day; where did you go after we parted?”
“I went to the Horse Guards, and saw Blanchard,—pompous old humbug that he is. I told him that I had made up my mind to sell out; that I intended to take service in a foreign army,—he hates foreigners,—and begged he would expedite my affairs with his Royal Highness, as my arrangements could not admit of delay.”
“And he told you that there was an official routine, out of which no officer need presume to expect his business could travel?”
“He told me no such thing. He flatly said, 'Your case is already before the Commander-in-Chief, Major Stapylton, and you may rely on it there will be no needless delay in dealing with it.”
“That was a threat, I take it.”
“Of course it was a threat; and I only said, 'It will be the first instance of the kind, then, in the department,' and left him.”
“Where to, after that?”
“I next went to Gregory's, the magistrate of police. I wanted to see the informations the black fellow swore to; and as I knew a son of Gregory's in the Carbiniers, I thought I could manage it; but bad luck would have it that the old fellow should have in his hands some unsettled bills with my indorsements on them,—fact; Gregory and I used to do a little that way once,—and he almost got a fit when he heard my name.”
“Tried back after that, eh?”