Began with that;
then abolition of purchase; then local centres; then that abominable
strap with the slip buckle--there, there, Harry, upon my soul, my boy, I
can't bear to think of it. But a man may be opposed, as I said, to the
whole present system of competitive examination, and yet, while that
system still unfortunately continues to exist (that is to say, until a
European War convinces all sensible people of the confounded folly of
it), he may feel that his own young men, who are reading up for a direct
commission, ought to be trying their hardest to get as much of this
nonsensical humbug into their heads as possible during the time just
before their own examinations. Now, Harry, I'm afraid you're not reading
quite as hard as you ought to be doing. The crammer's all very well in
his way, of course, but depend upon it, the crammer by himself won't get
you through it. What's needed is private study." Harry turned his handsome dark eyes upon his uncle--a very dark, almost
gipsy-looking face altogether, Harry's--and answered deprecatingly,
"Well, sir, and don't I go in for private study? Didn't I read up
_Samson Agonistes_ all by myself right through yesterday?" "I don't know what Samson Something-or-other is," the old gentleman
replied testily. "What the dickens has Samson Something-or-other got to
do with the preparation of a military man, I should like to know, sir?" "It's the English Literature book for the exam., you know," Harry
answered, with a quiet smile. "We've got to get it up, you see, with all
the allusions and what-you-may-call-its, for direct commission. It's a
sort of a play, I think I should call it, by John Milton." "Oh, it's the English Literature, is it?" the old Colonel went on,
somewhat mollified. "In my time, Harry, we weren't expected to know
anything about English literature. The Articles of War, and the
Officer's Companion, By Authority, that was the kind of literature we
used to be examined in. But nowadays they expect a soldier to be read up
in Samson Something-or-other, do they really? Well, well, let them have
their fad, let them have their fad, poor creatures. Still, Harry, I'm
very much afraid you're wasting your time, and your money also. If I
thought you only went to the Whitmarshes' to see Miss Milly, now, I
shouldn't mind so much about it. Miss Milly is a very charming, sweet
young creature, certainly--extremely pretty, too, extremely pretty--I
don't deny it. You're young yet to go making yourself agreeable, my boy,
to a pretty girl like that; you ought to wait for that sort of thing
till you've got your majority, or at least, your company--a young man
reading for direct commission has no business to go stuffing his head
cram full with love and nonsense. No, no; he should leave it all free
for fortification, and the general instructions, and Samson
Something-or-other, if soldiers can't be made nowadays without English
literature. But still, I don't so much object to that, I say--a sweet
girl, certainly, Miss Milly--what I do object to is your knocking about
so much at billiard-rooms, and so forth, with that young fellow
Whitmarsh. Not a very nice young fellow, or a good companion for you
either, Harry. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, my boy, he makes you spend a
great deal too much money." "I've never yet had to ask you to increase my allowance, sir," the young
man answered haughtily, with a curious glance sideways at his uncle. "Wilkins," Sir Thomas put in, with a nod to the butler, "go down and
bring up a bottle of the old Madeira. Harry, my boy, don't let us
discuss questions of this sort before the servants. My boy, I've never
kept you short of money in any way, I hope; and if I ever do, I trust
you'll tell me of it, tell me of it immediately." Harry's dark cheeks burned bright for a moment, but he answered never a
single word, and went on eating his dinner silently, with a very
hang-dog look indeed upon his handsome features. II. At half-past nine Sir Thomas drove down to the club, and, when he
reached the door, dismissed the coachman. "I shall walk back, Morton,"
he said. "I shan't want you again this evening. Don't let them sit up
for me. I mayn't be home till two in the morning." But as soon as the coachman had had full time to get back again in
perfect safety, Sir Thomas walked straight down the club steps once
more, and up the Promenade, and all the way to Futteypoor Lodge. When he
got there, he opened the door silently with his latch-key, shut it again
without the slightest noise, and walked on tip-toe into the library. It
was an awkward sort of thing to do, certainly, but Sir Thomas was
convinced in his own mind that he ought to do it. He wheeled an easy
chair into the recess by the window, in front of which the curtains were
drawn, arranged the folds so that he could see easily into the room by
the slit between them, and sat down patiently to explore this mystery to
the very bottom. Sir Thomas was extremely loth in his own mind to suspect anybody; and
yet it was quite clear that some one or other must have taken the
missing sovereigns. Twice over money had been extracted. It couldn't
have been cook, of that he felt certain; nor Wilkins either. Very
respectable woman, cook--very respectable butler, Wilkins. Not Morton;
oh dear no, quite impossible, certainly not Morton. Not the housemaid,
or the boy: obviously neither; well-conducted young people, every one of
them. But who the dickens could it be then? for certainly somebody had
taken the money. The good old Colonel felt in his heart that for the
sake of everybody's peace of mind it was his bounden duty to discover
the real culprit before saying a single word to anybody about it. There was something very ridiculous, of course, not to say undignified
and absurd, in the idea of an elderly field officer, late in Her
Majesty's service, sitting thus for hour after hour stealthily behind
his own curtains, in the dark, as if he were a thief or a burglar,
waiting to see whether anybody came to open his devonport. Sir Thomas
grew decidedly wearied as he watched and waited, and but for his strong
sense of the duty imposed upon him of tracking the guilty person, he
would once or twice in the course of the evening have given up the quest
from sheer disgust and annoyance at the absurdity of the position. But
no; he must find out who had done it: so there he sat, as motionless as
a cat watching a mouse-hole, with his eye turned always in the direction
of the devonport, through the slight slit between the folded curtains. Ten o'clock struck upon the clock on the mantelpiece--half-past
ten--eleven. Sir Thomas stretched his legs, yawned, and muttered
audibly, "Confounded slow, really." Half-past eleven. Sir Thomas went
over noiselessly to the side table, where the decanters were standing,
and helped himself to a brandy and seltzer, squeezing down the cork of
the bottle carefully with his thumb, to prevent its popping, till all
the gas had escaped piecemeal.