Cosmo coughed, and very leisurely opened the little note which Quentin handed to him.
"So, sir," said he, "so far as this scrap of paper imports—and I know Moore's writing well—he has appointed you an extra aide-de-camp?"
"He has done me the honour, Colonel Crawford."
"Your health, sir," said Lord Paget, frankly; "I congratulate you—won't you drink?"
"You might more usefully fill up the time necessary to qualify you for a staff appointment by serving with some corps of the army."
"The 25th, perhaps?" said Quentin, whose temper Cosmo's cutting coldness was rapidly bringing to a white heat.
"No, sir," he replied, with one of his insolent smiles, "I did not mean our friends the Borderers."
"What corps, then?"
"The Belem Rangers; what do you think of them?"
"Crawford!" exclaimed Lord Paget, starting with astonishment, for this imaginary corps was our general Peninsular term for all skulkers, malingerers, and others who showed the white feather, by loitering in the great hospital of Belem, near Lisbon.