“There 's not a man has done anything on the turf for fifty years I can't give you his history; not a horse I won't tell you all his performances, just as if you were reading it out of the 'Racing Calendar.' As 'Bell's Life' said t' other day, 'If Annesley Beecher can't answer that question,'—and it was about Running Rein,—'no man in England can.' I'm 'The Fellow round the corner' that you always see alluded to in 'Bell.'”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Conway, with assumed deference.
“That I am,—Kellett knows it. Ask old Paul there,—ask Grog,—ask any one you like, whether A. B. is up to a thing or two. But we 're forgetting this match,—the best thing you said you ever had.”
“I 'm not so sure you 'll be of my mind when you hear it,” said Conway, smiling. “It was a race we had t' other day in the Crimea,—a steeplechase, over rather a stiff course, with Spanish ponies; and I rode against Lord Broodale, Sir Harry Curtis, and Captain Marsden, and won five pounds and a dozen of champagne. My comrades betted something like fifty shillings on the match, and there would have been a general bankruptcy in the company if I had lost. Poor Jack mortgaged his watch and a pilot coat that he was excessively proud of,—it was the only bit of mufti in the battalion, I think; but he came off all right, and treated us all to a supper with his winnings, which, if I don't mistake, did n't pay more than half the bill.”
“Good luck to him, and here's his health,” cried Kellett, whose heart, though proof against all ordinary appeals to affection, could not withstand this assault of utter recklessness and improvidence. “He's my own flesh and blood, there's no denying it.”
If Conway was astounded at this singular burst of paternal affection, he did not the less try to profit by it, and at once began to recount the achievements of his comrade, Jack Kellett. The old man listened half doggedly at first, but gradually, as the affection of others for his son was spoken of, he relaxed, and heard, with an emotion he could not easily repress, how Jack was beloved by the whole regiment,—that to be his companion in outpost duty, to be stationed with him in a battery, was a matter of envy. “I won't say,” said Conway, “that every corps and every company has not fellows brave as he; but show me one who 'll carry a lighter spirit into danger, and as soft a heart amid scenes of cruelty and bloodshed. So that if you asked who in our battalion is the pluckiest, who the most tenderhearted, who the most generous, and who the least given to envy, you'd have the one answer, 'Jack Kellett,' without a doubt.”
“And what will it all do for him?” broke in the old man, resorting once more to his discontent.
“What will it do for him? What has it done for him? Is it nothing that in a struggle history will make famous a man's name is a household word; that in a war where deeds of daring are so rife, his outnumbers those of any other? It's but a few weeks back a Sardinian staff-officer, coming to our head-quarters on business, asked if the celebrated 'Bersagliere' was there,—so they call riflemen,—and desired to see him; and, better than that, though he didn't know Jack's name, none doubted who was meant, but Jack Kellett was sent for on the instant. Now, that I call fame.”
“Will it get him his commission?” said Beecher, knowingly, as though by one shrewd stroke of intelligence he had embraced the entire question.
“A commission can be had for four hundred and fifty pounds, and some man in Parliament to ask for it. But what Jack has done cannot be bought by mere money. Do you go out there, Mr. Beecher, just go and see for yourself—it's well worth the while—what stuff fellows are made of that face danger every day and night, without one thought above duty, never expecting, never dreaming that anything they do is to have its personal benefit, and would far rather have their health drunk by their comrades than be quoted in the 'Times.' You'll find your old regiment there,—you were in the Fusilier Guards, weren't you?”