“I say I wish you would, sir. It would seem to do me good like, for I’m reg’larly upset about Smithson, sir.”
“There, I beg your pardon, Brigley. I’m sorry I spoke so roughly.”
“Oh, don’t do that, sir. It don’t matter. I don’t want to think he’s gone, sir, because it’s ’ard—because he seemed to trust me a bit, and I don’t like for him to have gone off without saying a word.”
“Look here: you knew him before he joined?”
“Oh, yes, sir; I knew him.”
“You were friends?”
“No, sir—not exactly friends, but I knew him.”
“And—There! I don’t want to pump you, Brigley, but I suppose he was in quite a different station of life, and got into some trouble, which made him leave home?”
“Beg pardon, sir; Dick Smithson made me swear as I’d keep my mouth shut about him, and I give him my word; and, all respeck to you, sir, I’m going to keep it; but I can’t contradict what you said, sir, all the same.”
“Well, it would be confoundedly ungentlemanly of me to be prying into anyone’s affairs, Brigley, and I won’t ask questions about him. I hope, though, he hasn’t done anything so foolish as to desert, because, even if he is in the band, he is a soldier, and—I have heard nothing. Has it been reported?”