The sergeant looked him up and down.
“H’m! You’re a gentleman, aren’t you?”
“Well, I’m not so sure of that,” said Boy with a forced laugh. “I’ll try to be one when I’m a soldier!”
Upon which the sergeant gave him such a heavy blow of approval on his shoulder that he almost fell down under it.
“I like that!” he said. “That’ll do for me! Sound in wind and limb, aren’t you?”
“I think so!” And Boy, warmed and encouraged at heart by the kindly twinkle of the sergeant’s keen eyes, began to feel almost happy.
“Right you are! Come along then. Here’s your shilling,” and he pressed that silver coin, which Boy at the moment desired more than a nugget of gold, into the young man’s hand—“Done! Come along—name, age, and all the etceteras—and then a drink—and God save the Queen!”
“Amen!” said Boy as he followed his new commander.
CHAPTER XII
Two years had fully elapsed since the incidents narrated in the last chapter, and Miss Letty, in spite of the doctor’s ominous predictions, was still alive, and, as she expressed it, “in fairly good health for a woman of her age.” Major Desmond, however, was a prey to constant alarms, and in spite of the gout and rheumatism which nowadays afflicted him, used to visit her constantly, being always more or less in terror lest she should be snatched away suddenly from him and no time for a last “Good-bye.” And Miss Letty, with her always swift perception, saw his anxiety, and considered him very tenderly,—for he, though he did not seem to recognize it, was also suffering from the inevitable aches and pains of age, yet he held himself as bravely as ever. He wasn’t going to stoop and crawl about with a stick,—no, not he! And he bravely demonstrated his force of will by walking from his club in Piccadilly to Hans Place whenever his gouty foot was causing him the most acute suffering. Other men in his plight would have taken a cab, or at least availed themselves of a crutch—but he did neither. And there was so much practical good sense in the resistance he offered to the attempted siege of illness, that he cured himself of threatened attack many a time and saved the doctor’s bill.