"A bave British officer," Teddy repeated obediently.
"That's the ticket," he of the kilt agreed cordially, quite unconscious of the implied snub. "I'd like fine to serve under ye mysel'."
"I expect you'll be an officer too by then," Teddy suggested.
The big soldier chuckled. "I'm no for onnything o' that sort," he said, shaking his head. "I'm for the Resairve—when I marry," he added, with a side glance at Teddy's pretty nurse.
"That will do, Mr. Macdonald," she said, laying a neatly-gloved hand on the handle of the mail-cart. "I can manage myself now; we are past the steepest part."
The soldier obediently relinquished the mail-cart. He saluted Teddy, and Teddy saluted him with great solemnity. Then, with quite equal solemnity he winked, and swung away down the hill again.
Papa's friend had lent his servants as well as his flat, and among them was a highland housemaid, called Campbell by the authorities but known among her fellows as Girzie. And so Teddy knew her. Of course, nurse was far too grand a person to consort with the other servants on familiar terms. She might, on occasion, when nobody else was present, unbend a little towards a sergeant-major in his splendid uniform, but she rigorously enforced the distance her "training" put between her and the servants, and they not even of her employer's household. All the same, nurse made no objection when Girzie offered to look after Teddy on such occasions as she wanted an afternoon off in the society of that same sergeant-major. And Girzie, who adored Teddy, was most accommodating.
Now Girzie had a brother in the Black Watch. It is true he was "only just a soldier," as Teddy put it, to distinguish him from the more highly-placed acquaintance of nurse, but he looked upon it as a distinct advantage, for under Girzie's guardianship he was allowed to converse freely with the short, thick-set man, who was so agreeably ready to answer questions.
From him Teddy learnt the true significance of dirks and sporrans and philabegs and plaids and badges, and many other things. The letter R was still a difficulty with Teddy, and he felt rather out of it among people who seemed to take a positive delight in giving that letter an almost undue prominence. Yet, though Girzie's brother did exclaim rather often, "eh! what's that you're sayin'?" they got on famously on the whole; and though it may not be wholly flattering to be addressed as "the wee stoot yen," yet Teddy overlooked the familiarity because of the affection in its tone.
He was something of an Elizabethan in his simplicity and jovial sense of fellowship with his kind. And the truth is that the atmosphere of Teddy's home was somewhat rarefied.