'I have resigned more than two months of it, Wilton,' replied Roland.
'What an enthusiast, by Jove!'
'Not more than yourself, whose wound must be green yet.'
'Welcome—Roland,' cried another, a cheery young sub. with a hairless chin like an apple; 'you are just the man we want for the work before us.'
'That is right—jolly to see you again!' said a third.
'We missed you awfully, old fellow!' exclaimed a fourth.
Flattering were the greetings on every side as he stood amid the circle of Hussars, Lancers, Artillery, and others, neither perhaps the handsomest nor the tallest amid that merry and handsome group, but looking a soldier every inch in his somewhat frayed and faded fighting kit, which had seen service enough a short time before.
'Here comes Mostyn of ours,' said Wilton, as a very devil-may-care-looking young fellow, in the new khakee uniform, with a field-glass slung over his shoulder, came up. 'How goes it, Dick?—heard you had committed matrimony.'
'Not such a fool, Wilton.'
'We heard you were rather gone with that elderly party at Dover—the lass with all the rupees,' he added in a would-be sotto voce.