“It was this way, sir,” said Pen. “I was educated to be an officer, and then by a death in my family all my hopes were set aside, and I was placed in a lawyer’s office to become a clerk. I couldn’t bear it, sir.”
“And you ran away?”
“No, sir. I appealed again and again for leave to return to my school and finish my education. My relative refused to listen to me, and I suppose I did wrong, for I went straight to where they were recruiting for the Rifle-Regiment, and the sergeant took me at once.”
“H’m!” said the officer, looking searchingly in the lad’s eyes. “How came you to join so quiet-looking a regiment?”
Pen smiled rather bitterly.
“It was because my relative, sir, always threw it in my teeth that it was for the sake of the scarlet uniform that I wanted to join the army.”
“H’m!” said the officer. “Now, look here, my lad; I presume you have had your eyes about you during the time that you were a prisoner, when you were escaping, and when you were with the contrabandista and had that adventure with the Spanish gentleman whom you suppose to be the King. By the way, why did you suppose that he was the King?”
“From the behaviour of his followers, sir, and from what I learned from the smuggler chief.”
“H’m. He was a Spaniard, of course?”
“Yes, sir.”