er, looking towards Classon.

"I must, however reluctantly, decline, gentlemen," said Paul, blandly.
"_I_ cannot indulge like my respected friend here; _I_ stand in need of
rest and repose."

"He doesn't look a very delicate subject, notwithstanding," said a
subaltern, as Classon retired.

"There 's no judging from appearances," observed Driscoll. "You 'd
think _me_ a strong man, but I 'm weak as a child. There's nothing left
of me since I had the 'faver,' and I 'll tell you how it happened."

CHAPTER XXXI. THE CONVENT OF ST. GEORGE

Day broke heavily and dull through the massively barred windows of the
Convent of St George, and dimly discovered a vast crowd assembled in
the great hall of waiting: officers--sailor and soldier--come to
inquire news of wounded comrades, camp-followers, sutlers, surgeons,
araba-drivers, Tartar-guides, hospital nurses, newspaper correspondents,
Jew money-changers, being only some of the varieties in that great and
motley crowd.

Two immense fireplaces threw a ruddy glare over two wide semicircles of
human faces before them; but here and there throughout the hall,
knots and groups were gathered, engaged in deep and earnest converse.
Occasionally, one speaker occupied the attention of a listening group;
but, more generally, there was a sort of discussion in which parties
suggested this or that explanation, and so supplied some piece of
omitted intelligence.

It is to this dropping and broken discourse of one of these small
gatherings that I would now draw my reader's attention. The group
consisted of nigh a dozen persons, of whom a staff-officer and a naval
captain were the principal speakers.

"My own opinion is," said the former, "that if the personal episodes
of this war come ever to be written, they will be found infinitely more
strange and interesting than all the great achievements of the campaign.
I ask you, for instance, where is there anything like this very case? A
wounded soldier, half cut to pieces by the enemy, is carried to the rear
to hear that his claim to a peerage has just been established, and that
he has only to get well again to enjoy fifteen thousand a year."

"The way the tidings reach him is yet stranger," broke in another.

"What is _your_ version of that?"

"It is the correct one, I promise you," rejoined he; "I had it from
Colthorpe, who was present When the London lawyer--I don't know his
name--reached Balaklava, he discovered, to his horror, tha