Mr. Hawkins drove at full pace out of the barrack gates before he replied, “It’s all very fine for you to talk as if you were a thousand, Snipey, but, by George! we’re all getting on a bit.” His ingenuous brow clouded under the peak of his cap, and his thoughts reverted to the letter that he had thrust into the sachet. “I’ve been pretty young at times, I admit, but that’s the sort of thing that makes you a lot older afterwards.”
“Good thing, too,” put in Cursiter unsympathetically.
“Yes, by Jove!” continued Mr. Hawkins; “I’ve often said I’d take a pull, and somehow it never came off, but I’m dashed if I’m not going to do it this time.”
Captain Cursiter held his peace, and waited for the confidence that experience had told him would inevitably follow. It did not come quite in the shape in which he had expected it.
“I suppose there isn’t the remotest chance of my getting any leave now, is there?”
“No, not the faintest; especially as you want to go away for the Twelfth.”
“Yes, I’m bound to go then,” acknowledged Mr. Hawkins with a sigh not unmixed with relief; “I suppose I’ve just got to stay here.”
Cursiter turned round and looked up at his young friend. “What are you up to now?”
“Don’t be such an owl, Cursiter,” responded Mr. Hawkins testily; “why should there be anything up because I want all the leave I can get? It’s a very common complaint.”
“Yes, it’s a very common complaint,” replied Cursiter, with a certain acidity in his voice that was not lost upon Hawkins; “but what gave it to you this time?”