ts for the way in
which they've done it!--now that they've turned the army into an
examination-shop, tempered with jobbery, whatever we do, we shall go to
the deuce. So it don't matter."

"You were against the abolition?"

"I was, sir--with Wellington and Raglan and everybody else of any
account. And as for the violence, the disgraceful violence with which it
was carried--"

"Oh no, no," said Warkworth, laughing. "It was the Lords who behaved
abominably, and it'll do a deal of good."

Lord Lackington's eyes flashed.

"I've had a long life," he said, pugnaciously. "I began as a middy in
the American war of 1812, that nobody remembers now. Then I left the sea
for the army. I knocked about the world. I commanded a brigade in
the Crimea--"

"Who doesn't remember that?" said Warkworth, smiling.

The old man acknowledged the homage by a slight inclination of his
handsome head.

"And you may take my word for it that this new system will not give you
men worth _a tenth part_ of those fellows who bought and bribed their
way in under the old. The philosophers may like it, or lump it, but
so it is."

Warkworth dissented strongly. He was a good deal of a politician,
himself a "new man," and on the side of "new men." Lord Lackington
warmed to the fight, and Warkworth, with bitterness in his
heart--because of that group opposite--was nothing loath to meet him.
But presently he found the talk taking a turn that astonished him. He
had entered upon a drawing-room discussion of a subject which had, after
all, been settled, if only by what the Tories were pleased to call the
_coup d'etat_ of the Royal Warrant, and no longer excited the passions
of a few years back. What he had really drawn upon himself was a
hand-to-hand wrestle with a man who had no sooner provoked contradiction
than he resented it with all his force, and with a determination to
crush the contradictor.

Warkworth fought well, but with a growing amazement at the tone and
manner of his opponent. The old man's eyes darted war-flames under his
finely arched brows. He regarded the younger with a more and more
hostile, even malicious air; his arguments grew personal, offensive; his
shafts were many and barbed, till at last Warkworth felt his face
burning and his temper giving way.

"What _are_ you talking about?" said Julie Le Breton, at last, rising
and coming towards them.

Lord Lackington broke off suddenly and threw himself into his chair.

Warkworth ros