“We shall require two sureties of five hundred pounds each.”
“Take the whole myself, by Jove!” broke in Bubbleton, with a flourish of his hand. “In for a penny,—eh, Tom?”
“You can't do that, sir,” interposed Barton.
The Secretary nodded an assent, and for a moment or two Bubbleton looked nonplussed.
“You 'll of course have little difficulty as to a co-surety,” continued Barton, with a grin. “Burke of 'Ours' is sufficiently popular in the Forty-fifth to make it an easy matter.”
“True,” cried Bubbleton, “quite true; but in a thing of this kind, every fellow will be so deuced anxious to come forward,—a kind of military feeling, you know.”
“I understand it perfectly,” said Cooke, with a polite bow; “although a civilian, I think I can estimate the esprit de corps you speak of.”
“Nothing like it! nothing like it, by Jove! I 'll just tell you a story, a little anecdote, in point. When we were in the Neelgharries, there was a tiger devilish fond of one of ours. Some way or other, Forbes—that was his name—”
“The tiger's?
“No, the captain's. Forbes had a devilish insinuating way with him,—women always liked him,—and this tiger used to come in after mess, and walk round where he was sitting, and Forbes used to give him his dinner, just as you might a dog—”