el, and the Captain-General's conduct to
Webb, had been the talk of the whole army. When his Highness spoke, and
gave--"Le vainqueur de Wynendael; son armee et sa victoire," adding,
"qui nous font diner a Lille aujourd'huy"--there was a great cheer
through the hall; for Mr. Webb's bravery, generosity, and very
weaknesses of character caused him to be beloved in the army.

"Like Hector, handsome, and like Paris, brave!" whispers Frank
Castlewood. "A Venus, an elderly Venus, couldn't refuse him a pippin.
Stand up, Harry. See, we are drinking the army of Wynendael. Ramillies
is nothing to it. Huzzay! huzzay!"

At this very time, and just after our General had made his
acknowledgment, some one brought in an English Gazette--and was passing
it from hand to hand down the table. Officers were eager enough to read
it; mothers and sisters at home must have sickened over it. There scarce
came out a Gazette for six years that did not tell of some heroic death
or some brilliant achievement.

"Here it is--Action of Wynendael--here you are, General," says Frank,
seizing hold of the little dingy paper that soldiers love to read so;
and, scrambling over from our bench, he went to where the General
sat, who knew him, and had seen many a time at his table his laughing,
handsome face, which everybody loved who saw. The generals in their
great perukes made way for him. He handed the paper over General Dohna's
buff-coat to our General on the opposite side.

He came hobbling back, and blushing at his feat: "I thought he'd like
it, Harry," the young fellow whispered. "Didn't I like to read my name
after Ramillies, in the London Gazette?--Viscount Castlewood serving a
volunteer--I say, what's yonder?"

Mr. Webb, reading the Gazette, looked very strange--slapped it down
on the table--then sprang up in his place, and began to--"Will your
Highness please to--"

His Grace the Duke of Marlborough here jumped up too--"There's some
mistake, my dear General Webb."

"Your Grace had better rectify it," says Mr. Webb, holding out the
letter; but he was five off his Grace the Prince Duke, who, besides,
was higher than the General (being seated with the Prince of Savoy,
the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and the envoys of Prussia and Denmark,
under a baldaquin), and Webb could not reach him, tall as he was.

"Stay," says he, with a smile, as if catching at some idea, and then,
with a perfect courtesy, drawing his sword, he ran the Gazette through
w