"Right—so easy to die!" added Cosmo, with a strange and sickly smile.
It was at this inauspicious moment that a servant in uniform—liveries there were none then with the army—brought in Quentin's name.
"What the devil can this fellow possibly want with me?" said Cosmo, full of surprise at a circumstance so unusual as a visit from Quentin; "is he below?"
"Yes, sir."
"What does he wish?"
"To see you, sir," replied the soldier, with a second salute.
"Who is it?" drawled Paget, watching his cigar-smoke curling upward, and depositing the leg he was destined to leave at Waterloo on a spare chair.
"That fellow who was tried by a court-martial at Alva de Tormes."
"Tried—ah, I remember, for everything but high treason and housebreaking, eh?—ha! ha!"
"Yes; but who gave the charges the go-by at racing speed. Send him up!"