“I don’t know, father. Perhaps he thought you might ask him to dinner.”
“Ho!” said the Colonel, with a snort. “Then he thought wrong. Ah—but one moment! Would you like me to ask him, my boy?”
“Oh no,” cried Glyn, with a look of dismay. “We want you all to ourselves, father.”
“But you, Singh; would you like him to join us?”
The boy shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
“No,” he said; “I think like Glyn does,” and Singh clung in a boyish, affectionate manner to the stalwart Colonel’s arm, greatly to that gentleman’s satisfaction.
“Then we will have our snug little dinner all to ourselves, boys, and a good long talk about old times and the last news I have had from Dour.—Yes, all right, waiter; serve the dinner at once, and mind everything is very hot.—There you are: snug little table for three. I’ll sit this side with my back to the light, and you two can sit facing it, so that I can look at you both.”
“Oh, but that isn’t fair, father,” cried Glyn. “We ought to be with our backs to the light.”
“Not at all, sir,” said the Colonel, laughing. “A soldier should never be ashamed of his scars.”
The seats were taken, the dinner began, and had not proceeded far before Glyn noticed that the waiter was staring very hard at his bruised face, getting so fierce a look in return that the man nearly dropped the plate he was handing, and refrained from looking at him again.