are you to do with him?"

"I should give him a medal, for his pluck, Mr. Bale; and let him do
something where he would have a chance of showing his spirit."

"And make him as wild and harum-scarum as you are, yourself,
O'Halloran; and then expect him to turn out a respectable merchant,
afterwards? I am sure I don't wish to be troubled with him, till he
has got rid of what you call his spirits; but what are you to do
with such a pickle as this? There have been more bottles broken,
since he came, than there ordinarily are in the course of a year;
and I suspect him of corrupting my chief clerk, and am in mortal
apprehension that he will be getting into some scrape, at Hackney,
and make the place too hot for him.

"I never gave you credit for much brains, Carrie, but how it was
you let your brother grow up like this is more than I can tell."

Although this all sounded serious, Bob did not feel at all alarmed.
Carrie, however, thought that her uncle was greatly vexed, and
tried to take up the cudgels in his defence.

"I am sure Bob does not mean any harm, uncle."

"I did not say that he did, niece; but if he does harm, it comes to
the same thing.

"Well, we need not talk about that now. So I hear that you are
going out to the Mediterranean?"

"Yes, uncle, to Gibraltar. It is a nice station, everyone says, and
I am very pleased. There are so many places where there is fighting
going on, now, that I think we are most fortunate in going there. I
was so afraid the regiment might be sent either to America, or
India."

"And I suppose you would rather have gone where there was fighting,
O'Halloran?"

"I would," the officer said, promptly. "What is the use of your
going into the army, if you don't fight?"

"I should say, what is the use of going into the army, at all?" Mr.
Bale said, testily. "Still, I suppose someone must go."

"I suppose so, sir," Captain O'Halloran said, laughing. "If it were
not for the army and navy, I fancy you trading gentlemen would very
soon find the difference. Besides, there are some of us born to it.
I should never have made a figure in the city, for instance."

"I fancy not," Mr. Bale said, dryly. "You will understand,
O'Halloran, that I am not objecting in the slightest to your being
in the army. My objection solely lies in the fact that you, being
in the army, should have married my niece; and that, instead of
coming to keep house for me, comfortably, she is going to wander
about, wi