e horses were approaching the water jump, and the
travellers put down their newspapers and crowded to the window.

"Something in Tom Cannon's colours leading; he's over. That thing of
Lord Marcus is pulling hard. By Jove he is down! No, he has picked him
up again. Well ridden, sir!"

"Who is it up?"

"Why, Beresford himself. He will win, too, I think. Oh, hang it, I
wish they would stop the train a moment!"

Everybody laughed at this, though it was provoking not to see them over
the next fence; but the engine gave a derisive scream, and away they
rushed to Farnborough.

"There's Aldershot, and the Long Valley, and that Cocked Hat Wood.
British generals would beat creation if they might only let their left
rest on Cocked Hat Wood."

They were all army men in the carriage, and the conversation never
flagged now it had been started.

"Are you going by the _Serapis_?" asked a gentleman sitting opposite
Crawley, seeing _cabin_ painted on his busby case in the net overhead.

"Yes," replied Crawley. And then learning that he was bound for India
the other inquired the presidency and the station, and it so happened
that he had left that district only the year before, and was now settled
in Hampshire, having been superannuated, at which he grumbled much, and
indeed he was a hale young-looking man to be laid on the shelf. And so
the time sped rapidly till they reached Portsmouth harbour, where a
conspicuous white vessel, which was pointed out to Crawley as the
_Serapis_, lay moored to a quay. Then he superintended the loading of
his luggage in a cart, and, taking a cab, accompanied it through the
dock-yard gates to a shed, where he saw it deposited as per regulation.
Then he went to the "George," where he had secured a bed, and on
entering the coffee-room heard his name uttered in a tone of pleased
surprise: "Crawley!"

"What, Buller! How are you, old fellow?"

"All right. Are you going out in the _Serapis_?"

"Yes; and you?"

"Yes."

"That is jolly. What regiment are you in?"

"First Battalion Blankshire. Do you know I got into Sandhurst direct
the first time I went up!"

"Of course you did; you would be sure to do anything you really meant; I
always said so. I must go and report myself now and see about my
detachment, for there are some men going out with me; but we shall meet
at dinner."

They dined together at a small table by themselves, and had a long talk
afterwards about the old Weston f