“Introduce him, then, at once,” said the adjutant; “we’ll all go in the evening. What will the old squaw think?”
“Not I,” said Minchin. “She wrote to the Duke of York about my helping Matilda at supper, and not having any honorable intentions afterwards.”
“We dine at ‘The George’ to-day, Mr. O’Malley, sharp seven. Until then—”
So saying, the little man bustled back to his accounts, and I took my leave with the rest, to stroll about the town till dinner-time.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ADJUTANT’S DINNER.
The adjutant’s dinner was as professional an affair as need be. A circuit or a learned society could not have been more exclusively devoted to their own separate and immediate topics than were we. Pipeclay in all its varieties came on the tapis; the last regulation cap, the new button, the promotions, the general orders, the colonel and the colonel’s wife, stoppages, and the mess fund were all well and ably discussed; and strange enough, while the conversation took this wide range, not a chance allusion, not one stray hint ever wandered to the brave fellows who were covering the army with glory in the Peninsula, nor one souvenir of him that, was even then enjoying a fame as a leader second to none in Europe. This surprised me not a little at the time; but I have since that learned how little interest the real services of an army possess for the ears of certain officials, who, stationed at home quarters, pass their inglorious lives in the details of drill, parade, mess-room gossip, and barrack scandal. Such, in fact, were the dons of the present dinner. We had a commissary-general, an inspecting brigade-major of something, a physician to the forces, the adjutant himself, and Major Dalrymple; the hoi polloi consisting of the raw ensign, a newly-fledged cornet (Mr. Sparks), and myself.
The commissary told some very pointless stories about his own department; the doctor read a dissertation upon Walcheren fever; the adjutant got very stupidly tipsy; and Major Dalrymple succeeded in engaging the three juniors of the party to tea, having previously pledged us to purchase nothing whatever of outfit without his advice, he well knowing (which he did) how young fellows like us were cheated, and resolving to be a father to us (which he certainly tried to be).
As we rose from the table, about ten o’clock, I felt how soon a few such dinners would succeed in disenchanting me of all my military illusions; for, young as I was, I saw that the commissary was a vulgar bore, the doctor a humbug, the adjutant a sot, and the major himself I greatly suspected to be an old rogue.