When the cheers that followed the toast had died away, Jack on his side was eager to learn what had brought his old friends back to the Peninsula. Hearing that a new campaign was opening under Sir Arthur Wellesley, his face clouded for a moment.
"Sure an' ye've done enough for glory," said Captain O'Hare, noticing the expression, "and there's never a doubt the colonel will let ye go home to your sorrowing mother,—not to speak of escorting the colleen."
Jack blushed.
"Thank 'ee!" he said, "but I'm not going to run away from the regiment. Have you got a uniform to spare?"
"What, aren't ye in love then? Sure an' when I was your age I was desp'rately in love with half a dozen at once—the milkmaid, and the doctor's daughter, and the girl in the haberdasher's in Sackville Street, and a lot more."
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more,'"
quoted Shirley lugubriously.
"Honour, bedad! That's what I said to Patsy O'Dowd when she taxed me with making eyes at Honour O'Grady, and she boxed my ears,—and Patsy had a powerful heavy hand, begore. And if ye're not afraid of someone cutting you out—Mr. Dugdale, for instance ... By the way, is he going home too?"
"Not a doubt of that, sir," said the Grampus himself. "Amateuring isn't such fun as you'd think; why, I had to peel the onions till the Frenchman came! I'm sick of it; and I'm going home to practise doctoring on a new plan."
"What's that about onions?" called Colonel Beckwith from the head of the table.