"What do you mean?" said the Colonel.
"It's in the Observer and the Royalist too," said Mr. Smith.
"What?" Rawdon cried, turning very red. He thought that the affair with Lord Steyne was already in the public prints. Smith looked up wondering and smiling at the agitation which the Colonel exhibited as he took up the paper and, trembling, began to read.
Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the gentleman with whom Rawdon had the outstanding whist account) had been talking about the Colonel just before he came in.
"It is come just in the nick of time," said Smith. "I suppose Crawley had not a shilling in the world."
"It's a wind that blows everybody good," Mr. Brown said. "He can't go away without paying me a pony he owes me."
"What's the salary?" asked Smith.
"Two or three thousand," answered the other. "But the climate's so infernal, they don't enjoy it long. Liverseege died after eighteen months of it, and the man before went off in six weeks, I hear."
"Some people say his brother is a very clever man. I always found him a d——— bore," Smith ejaculated. "He must have good interest, though. He must have got the Colonel the place."
"He!" said Brown, with a sneer. "Pooh. It was Lord Steyne got it."