"He may arrive next week, perhaps, my lord, and he will at once dutifully hasten to present himself to you."
"He must be well up among the Lieutenants of the Hussars now?"
"Yet he means to exchange into the Infantry."
"Why?"
"It is a matter of expedience and expense, my lord; even with forage, batta, tentage, and so forth, he finds his regiment a very extravagant one."
"I shall give him a cheque on Coutts and Co., for I must not forget that you did me the honour to name him after me."
"But you did us the greater honour in being his sponsor—and in bestowing upon him a gold sponsorial mug."
"With the Koithgath of the Trevelyans for a handle, and another perched on the lid; well, well—he may be my successor here—who knows, who knows," mumbled the old man, as he prepared to take his-after dinner nap, by spreading a cambric handkerchief over his face, and Downie glided noiselessly away to the library, with a strange and unfathomable smile on his colourless face, and he muttered,—
"I too may say—'the time will come!'"