Brumpton groaned.
“I say, why don’t you make the tailor take all the padding away?” cried Dick.
“I did beg and pray of him to, but he wouldn’t. He said it would spoil my figure, and I should look fuller and fatter. Oh, dear! I never thought, after working as I have in the regiment, that I should live to be laughed at like this!”
“Oh, don’t mind that. I couldn’t help laughing, too, Mr Brumpton. It did look rather comic.”
“To you, my lad—to you; but it’s death to me! I shall be turned out of the regiment on a pension. Me going out on a pension at my time of life! But it must come.”
“Don’t let it,” said Dick. “You’re a young man yet.”
“Yes; six-and-thirty, Smithson—that’s all.”
“Well, will you let me speak plainly, Mr Brumpton?”
“Of course, I will, my dear boy; I always liked you from the day when you came up to me and wanted the shilling. I said to myself then, ‘This chap’s a gentleman—’”
“Oh, nonsense—nonsense,” cried Dick.