"Better than two years. Directly the campaign is over I shall give up my trumpet, and hope I shall get my stripes soon."
"How old are you—nineteen?"
"Not for some months yet, sergeant."
"Hope to get your commission some day?" the sergeant said. "I suppose that is what you entered the army for."
"Yes, partly, sergeant; partly because I saw no other way of keeping myself."
"But what are your friends doing?"
"I have not any friends; at least none that I care to apply to," Edgar answered shortly.
"No friends, lad? That is bad. But I do not want to know your story if you do not choose to tell it. It is easy to see that you have had a good education. Keep steady, lad, and you will get on. I might have been a quarter-master years ago if it hadn't been for that. Drink and other things have kept me down; but when I was twenty I was a smart young fellow. Ah! that is a long time back."
"Why, one would think that you were an old man, sergeant," Edgar said, and smiled.
"Older than you would think by a good bit. How old do you take me to be?"