"That's HIM, sir," said the first one.
The new comer was walking slowly up the room, and there began to arise a little breeze of applause, and then some one called out, "Three cheers for the Inkerman pet," and then there was a stamping of feet, and a little laughter, and cheering in various parts of the room, but the new comer made one bow and walked on.
"Pray, sir," said I, bending over to one of those who had spoken before, "who is that gentleman?"
He had no need to tell me. The man we spoke of reached the orchestra and turned round. It was Jim Brentwood!
There was a great white seam down his face, and he wore a pair of light curling moustachios, but I knew him in a moment; and, when he faced round to the company, I noticed that his person seemed known to the public, for there was not a little applause with the bottoms of tumblers, not unlike what one remembers at certain banquets I have been at, with certain brethren, Sons of Apollo.
In one moment we were standing face to face, shaking one another by both hands; in another, we were arm in arm, walking through the quiet streets towards Jim's lodgings. He had been in Ireland with his regiment, as I knew, which accounted for my not having seen him. And that night, Major Brentwood recounted to me all his part in the last great campaign, from the first fierce rush up the hill at the Alma, down to the time when our Lady pinned a certain bit of gun metal on to his coat in St. James's Park.
A few days after this, Jim and I were standing together on the platform of the Wildmoor station, on the South-Western Railway, and a couple of porters were carrying our portmanteaus towards a pair-horse phaeton, in which stood Sam Buckley, shouting to us to come on, for the horses wouldn't stand. So, in a moment, I was alongside of Sam in the front seat, with Jim standing up behind, between the grooms, and leaning over between us, to see after Sam's driving; and away we went along a splendid road, across a heath, at what seemed to me a rather dangerous pace.
"Let them go, my child," said Jim to Sam, "you've got a fair mile before. You sit at your work in capital style. Give me time and I'll teach you to drive, Sam. How do you like this, Uncle Jeff?"
I said, "That's more than I can tell you, Master Jim. I know so little of your wheeled vehicles that I am rather alarmed."
"Ah!" said Jim, "you should have been in Calcutta when the O'Rourke and little Charley Badminton tried to drive a pair of fresh imported Australians tandem through the town. Red Maclean and I looked out of the billiard-room, and we saw the two horses go by with a bit of a shaft banging about the wheeler's hocks. So we ran down and found Charley, with his head broke, standing in the middle of the street, mopping the blood off his forehead. 'Charley,' says I, 'how the deuce did this happen?' 'We met an elephant,' says he, in a faint voice."