e win this campaign I will certainly ask
for you as adjutant. I shall be awfully glad to have you with me,
and I really do want an adjutant for each battalion.

"And you, O'Grady?"

"Well, I can't report favourably of meself at all, at all. I tried
hard for a week, and it is the fault of me tongue, and not of
meself. I can't get it to twist itself to the outlandish words. I
am willing enough, but me tongue isn't; and I am afraid that, were
it a necessity that every officer in your corps should speak the
bastely language, I should have to stay at home."

"I am afraid that it is quite necessary, O'Grady," Terence laughed.
"An adjutant who could not make himself understood would be of no
shadow of use. You know how I should like to have you with me; but,
upon the other hand, there would be inconveniences. You are, as you
have said many a time, my superior officer in our army, and I
really should not like to have to give you orders. Then again, Bull
and Macwitty are still more your juniors, having only received
their commissions a few months back; and they would feel just as
uncomfortable as I should, at having you under them. I don't think
that it would do at all. Besides, you know, you are not fond of
work by any means, and there would be more to do in a regiment like
this than in one of our own."

"I suppose that it must be so, Terence," O'Grady said resignedly,
as he emptied his tumbler; "and besides, there is a sort of
superstition in the service that an adjutant should be always able
to walk straight to his tent, even after a warm night at mess. Now,
although it seems to me that I have every other qualification, in
that respect I should be a failure; and I imagine that, in a
Portuguese regiment, the thing would be looked at more seriously
than it is in an Irish one; where such a matter occurs,
occasionally, among men as well as officers."

"That is quite true, O'Grady. The Portuguese are a sober people and
would not, as you say, be able to make the same allowance for our
weaknesses that Irish soldiers do; seeing that it is too common for
our men to be either one way or the other.

"However, Ryan, I do hope I shall be able to get you. I never had
much hopes of O'Grady; and this failure of his tongue to aid him,
in his vigorous efforts to learn the language, seems to quite
settle the matter as far as he is concerned."

At this moment an orderly rode up to the tent. Terence went out.

"A despatch from headquar