“Shall I go in and see it?” Mrs. Gray asked.
“I wish you would. Some of the others are there.”
Well, eventually Mrs. Gray carried off the little stranger to her own quarters, and put it to bed. As for Bootles, he too went to bed, but during the whole of that blessed night he never slept a wink.
CHAPTER II.
When Bootles showed his face in the mess-room the following morning he was greeted by such a volley of chaff as would have driven a more nervous man, or one less of a favorite than himself, to despair. Already the story had gone the round of the barracks, and Bootles found the greater part of his brother officers ready and willing to take Miles’s view of the affair, whether in chaff or downright good earnest he could not say.
“Halloo! Bootles, my man,” shouted one when he entered, “what’s this story we hear? Is it possible that Bootles—our immaculate and philanthropical Bootles— Oh, Bootles! Bootles! how are the mighty fallen!”
“Hey?” inquired Bootles, sweetly.
“I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Bootles; I wouldn’t indeed. Any other fellow in the regiment—that soft-headed Lacy grinning over there, for instance—but our Bootles—” He broke off as if words could not express the volumes he thought, but found his tongue and went on again before Bootles could open his mouth. “Our Bootles with an unacknowledged wife sworn not to disclose her marriage—our Bootles with a baby—our Bootles a papa! Oh lor!”
“Why didn’t you manage better, Bootles?” cried another. “You might have sent her an odd fiver now and then. You have plenty.”
“Is she pretty, Bootles?” asked a third.