Next morning, when Kavanagh was dressed, he turned to his bath with a sad conviction that his morning ablutions must in future be of a much less satisfactory nature, and he sighed, for this went more home to him than almost anything. “Ta, ta, tub!” he said, as he closed the door.
He found Royce already in the sitting-room making the tea, and they breakfasted together.
When the meal was over, Kavanagh rose and said—
“By-the-by, there is my gun; it is a full-choke, and a remarkably good killer if one only holds it straight. It was a present, and I did not like to sell it. Will you have it as a memorial from a fellow to whom you have been uncommonly kind? Good-bye, and thank you for all.”
“Good-bye,” said Royce, in a voice which he had a difficulty to keep steady. “I hope luck will turn for you soon; but I feel sure it will. And if you have forgotten anything, or I can do anything for you, mind you come to me, or write if I am out of town. Good-bye again.”
Kavanagh wrung his old captain’s hand and hurried down-stairs, leaving him with a ball in his throat and moisture very near his eyes.
“Thank goodness that is over!” he murmured, as he left the Temple. “Now for the barracks.”
Instead of offering himself to one of the outside recruiters, he went straight to the Orderly Room, and told a sergeant waiting outside that he wished to join. So he was brought before the Adjutant almost at once. He stood six feet in his stockings, and measured forty-one inches round the chest, so there was no difficulty about his acceptance. They jumped at him like a trout at a May fly.
He gave his real name, Reginald Kavanagh. “If I were ashamed of what I am doing, I would not do it,” he reasoned. And besides, he wished to be traced with the greatest possible ease should the missing will be found.
Of course the life at first was extremely hard, and the companionship of some of his comrades very distasteful to him, but he took care not to show it. And others were as good fellows as ever stepped, and with them he made friends.