"Lad wishes to enlist as a trumpeter, sir. Here is a letter from his next friend, Sergeant M'Bride of the 18th Hussars. Lad's father and mother dead. M'Bride stands in place of guardian."
"A likely story," the adjutant muttered to himself. "What is your name, lad?"
"I enlist as Edward Smith," Edgar said, "age sixteen."
"Parents dead?"
"I lost them when I was a child, sir."
"Who were they?"
"My father was a sergeant in the 30th Foot, sir."
The adjutant was watching him narrowly.
"Either he is telling the truth," he said to himself, "or he is one of the calmest young liars I have ever come across."
"And there is no one who has any legal right to control you or to object to your enlisting?"