pound a year--would you now?”

“We are poor folk in this part of the country,” I answered. “You would pass for a rich man down here.”

“They are fool folk and they have fool tastes,” said he, drawing a black pipe from his pocket and stuffing it with tobacco. “I know what good living is, and, by cripes! while I have a shilling in my pocket I like to spend it as a shilling should be spent. I've fought for my country and my country has done darned little for me. I'll go to the Rooshians, so help me! I could show them how to cross the Himalayas so that it would puzzle either Afghans or British to stop 'em. What's that secret worth in St. Petersburg, eh, mister?”“I am ashamed to hear an old soldier speak so, even in jest,” said I sternly. “Jest, indeed!” he cried, with a great, roaring oath. “I'd have done it years ago if the Rooshians had been game to take it up. Skobeloff was the best of the bunch, but he's been snuffed out. However, that's neither here nor there. What I want to ask you is whether you've ever heard anything in this quarter of a man called Heatherstone, the same who used to be colonel of the 41st Bengalis? They told me at Wigtown that he lived somewhere down this way.” 

“He lives in that large house over yonder,” said I, pointing to Cloomber Tower. “You'll find the avenue gate a little way down the road, but the general isn't over fond of visitors.” 

The last part of my speech was lost upon Corporal Rufus Smith; for the instant that I pointed out the gate he set off hopping down the road. 

His mode of progression was the most singular I have ever seen, for he would only put his right foot to the ground once in every half-dozen strides, while he worked so hard and attained such a momentum with the other limb that he got over the ground at an astonishing speed. 

I was so surprised that I stood in the roadway gazing after this hulking figure until the thought suddenly struck me that some serious result might come from a meeting between a man of such blunt speech and the choleric, hot-headed general. I therefore followed him as he hopped along like some great, clumsy bird, and overtook him at the avenue gate, where he stood grasping the ironwork and peering through at the dark carriage-drive beyond. 

“He's a sly old jackal,” he said, looking round at me and nodding his head in the direction of the Hall. “He's a deep old dog. And that's his bungalow, is it, among the trees?” 

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