"I thank you, Major," said Dr. Ponderby, leisurely filling his gla.s.s, "and my Lord Cleeve, coming back to my patient's rib, I repeat its abounding health is due entirely to a youthful and immensely robust const.i.tution and----"

"Abstemious--ho!" chuckled the Colonel. "Given occasion sir, Jack can be as abstemious as Bacchus. I remember last time we made a night on't--aha! It being nigh dawn and we on our fifth bottle, or was it the seventh, Jack--not to mention Sir Benjamin's punch, begad, it being nigh dawn, I say, and I happening to glance about missed divers faces from the genial board. 'Where are they all, Jack?' says I. 'Under the table,' says he, sober as a judge, and damme sir, so they were and Jack as I say, sober as yourself sir, for all his abstemiousness!"

"Hem!" exclaimed Dr. Ponderby, gulping his wine and rising. "None the less, Major d'Arcy, my dear sir, you shall be abroad again in a week if--I say, and mark me sir, I say it with deepest emphasis--if you will brisk up, banish gloomy thought and melancholy, cultivate joy, sit i'

the sun, eat well, drink moderately and sleep as much as possible."

"A copious prescription, sir!" sighed the Major wearily.

"Brisk?" snorted Lord Cleeve, "brisk, is it? Refuse me but he's as brisk and joyous as a gallows! Here he sits, hunched up in that old service coat and glooms and glowers all day, and when night draws on, d.a.m.ns his bed, curses himself, and wishes his oldest friend to the devil and that's me sir--his friend I mean."

"Stay, never that, George," smiled the Major, shaking protesting head.

"But ya' curst gloomy Jack, none the less."

"This won't do," smiled Dr. Ponderby, "won't do at all. Gloom must we dissipate----"

"Dissipate!" exclaimed the Colonel, "dissipate--aye man, but he won't drink and the Oporto's the right stuff you'll allow----"

"He must have company----"

"Well and aren't I company?"

"The very best, my lord----"

"Not to mention Viscount Tom and----"

"Very true sir," smiled the doctor, "only you don't either of you happen to wear petticoats----"

"Petticoats!" exclaimed the Colonel, rolling his eyes.

"Petticoats are my prescription, my lord--plenty of 'em and taken often. A house is a gloomy place without 'em----'

"Agad and ya' right there--ya' right there!" nodded the Colonel vehemently.

"No!" protested the Major.

"Yes!" cried the Colonel. "Look at my place in Surrey, the d.a.m.ndest, dreariest curst hole y'ever saw----"

"Nay George, when I saw it last it was----"

"A plaguy, dreary hole, Jack!" snapped the Colonel. "Used to wonder why I couldn't abide the place--reason perfectly plain to-day--lacks a petticoat, and Jack man, a petticoat I'm a-going to have soon, man, soon ha, and so shall you begad!"

"Never!" said the Major drearily.

"Now hark to the poor, curst wretch, 'tis the woefullest dog!"

exclaimed the Colonel feelingly, "won't drink and no petticoats! Man Jack, I tell thee woman is to man his--his--well, she's a woman, and man without woman's gentle and purifying influence is--is only--only a--well, man. Look at me. After all these years, Jack 'tis a petticoat for me."

The Major murmured the old adage about one man's meat being another man's poison, whereon his lordship snarled and rolled his eyes as he rose to escort the doctor to the door.

"Petticoats quotha?" said he, "Petticoats it shall be."

"In large doses!" nodded Dr. Ponderby, "and repeated often." So saying, he shook the invalid's languid hand, smiled and bustled away.

"Ha!" exclaimed his lordship, "there's a man of stark common sense, Jack."

"Aye, aye," nodded the Major a little impatiently, "but what of Effingham, you say he has left Westerham?"

"He left at mid-day, Jack."

"For good?"

"'Twould seem so, he marched bag and baggage. The rascal fences purely well, I vow."

"Superlatively well," nodded the Major beginning to fill a much smoked clay pipe.

"Man Jack, I thought he had ya' there in carte."

"Nay I was expecting it and ready, George. I should have caught him on the riposte but I was short d'ye see----"

"Owing to ya' rib, Jack."

"d.a.m.n my rib!" exclaimed the Major. "'Tis pure folly I should be laid up and sit here like a lame dog for so small a matter as a rib, d'ye see----"

"'Tis more than ya' rib is wrong with ya', Jack!"

"A Gad's name, what?"

"A general gloom and debility induced by lack of and need for--a petticoat."

"Folly!" snorted the Major, but his pale cheek flushed none the less.

"Talking o' Dalroyd, ya' pinked his sword arm, Jack."

"But he's alive, alive George and now, now for all I know--where's Tom--where's Pancras? For all we know they may be fighting at this moment!" And the Major half rose from his elbow-chair.

"Content ya', Jack, content ya'!" said the Colonel, pressing him back with hands surprisingly gentle, "the lad's not fighting--nor likely to.

I swear again, he shan't cross blades with Dalroyd or Effingham if I have to pistol the rogue myself, so ha' no worry on that score, Jack."

The Major sighed and leaned back in his chair while Lord Cleeve watched him and, snuffing copiously, sighed sympathetically.

"'Tis the woefullest figure ya' cut, Jack, wi' that long face and d.a.m.ned old service coat."

"'Tis the one I wore at Ramillies," said the Major, glancing down at faded cloth and tarnished lace.

"Is it, begad! I'd never ha' recognised it. Then 'tis time 'twas superannuated and retired from active service. You was wounded that day I remember, Tack."

"Yes."

"Twice."