“I am endeavoring to get back to the Crimea,” said Conway, smiling at the prospect which the other had with such frankness opened to him.
“The Crimea!” exclaimed Beecher, “why, that is downright madness; they 're fighting away there just as fresh as ever. The very last paper I saw is filled with an account of a Russian sortie against our lines, and a lot of our fellows killed and wounded.”
“Of course there are hard knocks—”
“It's all very well to talk of it that way, but I think you might have been satisfied with what you saw, I 'd just as soon take a cab down to Guy's, or the Middlesex Hospital, and ask one of the house-surgeons to cut me up at his own discretion, as go amongst those Russian savages. I tell you it don't pay,—not a bit of it!”
“I suppose, as to the paying part, you 're quite right; but, remember, there are different modes of estimating the same thing. Now, I like soldiering—”
“No accounting for tastes,” broke in Beecher. “I knew a fellow who was so fond of the Queen's Bench Prison he would n't let his friends clear him out; but, seriously speaking, the Crimea 's a bad book.”
“I should be a very happy fellow to-night if I knew how I could get back there. I 've been trying in various ways for employment in any branch of the service. I 'd rather be a driver in the Wagon Train than whip the neatest four-in-hand over Epsom Downs.”
“There 's only one name for that,” said Beecher; “at least, out of Hanwell.”
“I 'd be content to be thought mad on such terms,” said Conway, good-humoredly, “and not even quarrel with those who said so!”
“I 've got a better scheme than the Crimea in my head,” said Beecher, in a low, cautious voice, like one afraid of being overheard. “I've half a mind to tell you, though there 's one on board here would come down pretty heavily on me for peaching.”