“I dare say.”
“But I thought he was engaged to be married. What’s the young lady about, to let him go?”
“Well, the fact is,” said I, “the young lady turns out to be a wrong un, and is now chasing him about with a writ for breach of promise in her glove, like a cab-fare.”
“So he’s off to escape that?” said my sister. “You’re a nice lot. Any one else?”
“Teddy Parsons, in my militia.”
“He’s a poor creature,” my sister observed. “I shouldn’t take him; why, all he can do is play the banjo and walk about Southport in breeches and gaiters!”
“Yes, but he’s an old friend, and I want to do him a good turn.”
“You’ve odd notions of doing people a good turn,” Muriel laughed.
“The fact is,” I said, “he’s rather in a hole about a bill of his that’s coming due. He’s gone shares with one of our fellows in the regiment in a steeple-chaser and given him a bill to meet the expenses of training and the purchase; and as the bill’s coming due and he’s mortally afraid of his father—”
“You undertake to meet the bill, on the condition he joins you. I see. And has that been the best you can do? Who’s the sixth?”