“Hadn’t you better get up and see if any one is listening at the door, Captain Murray?” said Andrew sarcastically.
“Because my words sound treasonable, my lad?”
“Yes, and may be magnified by the echoes of the Palace walls, sir.”
The big, frank officer sank back in his chair, and laughed merrily.
“You’re a queer fellow, Forbes—a clever fellow—with a splendid memory; but—there, don’t feel insulted—you must have been meant for a woman: you have such a sharp, spiteful tongue. No, no, no—sit still. You must take as well as give. Do you two ever fall out, Frank? He’s as hot as pepper.”
“Yes, often,” said Frank, smiling; “but we soon make it up again, for he’s about the bravest and best fellow I ever knew.”
As Frank spoke, he reached over and gripped his friend’s arm warmly.
“You don’t know how good and kind and helpful he has been in all this trouble.”
“I believe it,” said Captain Murray, smiling. “He’s a lucky fellow too, for he has won a good friend. You hear, Hotspur? A good friend in Frank here, who is the very spit of his father, one of the bravest, truest soldiers that ever lived.”
These words were said in a way which made Frank feel a little choky, and turned the tide of Andrew Forbes’s anger, which now ebbed rapidly away.