Despite this, Marmaduke, who had inherited no little of his father's obstinacy, took the opportunity of the bath-chair reaching the finest point of the view to say with a great show of courage--
"By the way, sir, don't you think it's about time to send that money for my majority? Pringle is rather in a hurry to retire, and the price may run up if we don't act soon."
His lordship rather admired this home thrust without warning, but he was on his guard at once and cleared his throat for a speech.
"It's a positive disgrace to our army, and so I told poor Brougham the last time I saw him, that promotion should not only go by purchase but that private individuals should have power to fill their pockets with the proceeds of further extortion. It is a kind of simony; it is the sale of valour, of one's country's good!"
Lord Drummuir was a noted orator when he chose, even in those days when everyone could string words together into high-sounding phrases, and when Edmund Burke's foaming fulminations were held up to the young as models of eloquence; but Marmaduke was obdurate.
"Possibly, sir," he interrupted, "but I want to do it. You see, sir," he warmed with his subject, "I'll be dashed if I've troubled you much in the last ten years--now have I? You've made me an allowance on which I couldn't live in a gentlemanly way at home. So I've exchanged again and again for foreign service, going down and down till I've landed in the West Indies. And now I have this chance of getting back to my old regiment, to a soldier's life that is worth having----"
"No soldier's life is worth having. If you will be kind enough to remember, I objected from the first to the army," interrupted the old man, with icy politeness.
Marmaduke groaned aloud.
"Oh, don't let us go back so far as that, sir. The thing's done, and practically you have to decide now whether you're going to wreck my fortune or make it."
Lord Drummuir took out his pocket-handkerchief solemnly.