"I think I can do that, O'Grady," Terence laughed. "You see, I have done credit to your instructions."
"You have that. I always told you that I would make a man of you, and it is my instruction that has done it.
"How I wish, lad," he went on, with a sudden change of voice, "that your dear father had been here this day! Faith, he would have been a proud man. Ah! It was a cruel bullet that hit him, at Vimiera."
"Ay, you may well say that, O'Grady," the colonel agreed.
"Have you heard from him lately, Terence?"
"No, colonel. It's more than four months since I have had a letter from him. Of course, he always writes to me to headquarters but, as I only stopped there a few hours, on my way from Lisbon to join the regiment, I stupidly forgot to ask if there were any letters for me; and of course there has been no opportunity for them to be forwarded to me, since. However, they will know in a day or two that I have arrived here, and will be sure to send them on, at once."
"Now, let's hear all about it, O'Connor, for at present we have heard nothing but vague rumours about the doings of this northern army of yours, beyond what the general has just said."
"But first, colonel, if you will permit me to say so," O'Grady put in, "I would propose that General Crawford's suggestion, as to the first thing to be done, should be carried out; and that the whisky keg should be produced again.
"We have a good stock, Terence, enough to carry us nearly through the winter."
"Then it must be a good stock, indeed, O'Grady," Terence laughed. "You see, the general was too sharp for us."