To-day we came over a wretched road and a bridge with one arch broken and no parapet, and as Sergeant H. reported, ‘Bridge in a worse state, if possible, than last year; quite unsafe for the carriage.’ After we come in to camp, we generally all sit in front of the tents and drink tea. The gentlemen come and ask for a cup and talk over the disasters of the road, and it is rather a gossiping time; particularly when enlivened by Mr. S., who is always like a sharp contradictory character in a farce, but before he has had his breakfast he is perfectly rabid. To-day he began as usual.
‘How slowly you must have come.’
‘The road was so bad,’ I said.
‘Yes, so everybody chooses to say. I thought it the best road we have had, much better than any of C.’s famous smooth roads.’
‘Did you come safely over that bridge?’
‘What was to hinder me? I cannot think why people find fault with that bridge, one of the best bridges I ever saw.’
‘Except that it has a broken arch and no parapet,’ I suggested.
‘Well! nobody wants to drive on a parapet. I think parapets are perfectly useless.’
Then C.’s palanquin went by, and as he was standing with us, Mr. S. took the opportunity of asking, ‘What wretches of children are those, I wonder?’ ‘Mine,’ said C., ‘or you would have had no pleasure in asking.’
It was such nonsense! Little ‘Missey C.’ is the smallest, prettiest little fairy I ever saw, and the pet of the whole camp; they are really beautiful children, and S. knew the palanquin perfectly. I told him at last he was just what our governess used to call ‘a child that had got out of bed the wrong way,’ and recommended his having his breakfast as soon as possible, and he owned, he thought it advisable himself.