Harden had replenished the glasses, and the one he passed to the prodigal was the fated calf—it was full.
The guest raised the glass till the sunlight, slanting through a window, threw life into the amber fluid, and gazed lovingly upon it.
"Oh, my aunt!" Harden bantered; "the man who has come up out of the stillness has a toast." The little man coughed, and from the flat chest floated up through thin tubes a voice that was soft and cultured as it wafted to their astonished ears: "Gentlemen, the Queen."
FitzHerbert, who had been in the Guards before something had happened, started. It was the toast of a vice-president of an officer's mess at dinner.
The six sprang to their feet, carried aloft their glasses, drank, and sat down again in silence. Fitz-Herbert's big voice had a husk in it as he asked, "Where is the regimental band, sir?"
The little man's shoulders twitched as he answered: "The band is outside: we'll have the bandmaster in for a glass of wine, presently."
"By George!" FitzHerbert gasped, for he knew this was a custom at mess; and Carney, who also knew, gazed at the little man, and his gray eyes that were thought hard, had gone blue.
"Now," Harden declared, "if somebody should dribble in who could give us twelve booms from 'Big Ben,' we'd have a perfect ecstasy of the blues."
At that two men came in through the front door, their scarlet tunics showing blood red in the glint of sunshine that played about their shoulders.
"Oh, you, Sergeant Jerry Platt!" the blond giant cried; "here is where the regulations bear heavy on a man, for we can't invite you to join up."