ere a messenger, instead of being a soldier, like all my family for
seven generations back. I won't say I like it,--that would n't be true;
but I do it because it happens to be one of the few things I _can_ do."

"That's a mistake, sir," said the Colonel, fiercely; "a mistake
thousands fall into every day. A man can make of life whatever he likes,
if only--mark me well--if only his will be strong enough."

"If wishing would do it--"

"Hold! I'm not talking of wishing; schoolboys wish, pale-cheeked
freshmen at college, goggle-eyed ensigns in marching regiments wish.
Men, real men, do not wish; they will,--that's all the difference.
Strong men make a promise to themselves early in life, and they feel
it a point of honor to keep it. As Rose said one day in the club at
Calcutta, speaking of me, 'He has got the Bath, just because he said he
would get it.'"

"The theory is a very pleasant one."

"You can make the practice just as pleasant, if you like it. Whenever
you take your next leave,--they give you leave, don't they?"

"Yes, three months; we might have more, I believe, if we asked for it."

"Well, come and spend your next leave with me at Corfu. You shall have
some good shooting over in Albania, plenty of mess society, pleasant
yachting, and you 'll like our old Lord High; he's stiff and cold at
first, but, introduced by me, you 'll be at once amongst the 'most
favored nations.'"

"I can't thank you enough for so kind a proposal," began Tony; but the
other stopped him with, "Don't thank me, but help me to take care of
this bag. It contains the whole fate of the Levant in its inside. Those
sacks of yours,--I suppose you know what they have for contents?"

"No; I have no idea what's in them."

"Old blue-books and newspapers, nothing else; they 're all
make-believes,--a farce to keep up the notion that great activity
prevails at the Foreign Office, and to fill up that paragraph in
the newspapers, 'Despatches were yesterday sent off to the Lord High
Commissioner of the Bahamas,' or 'Her Majesty's Minister at Otaheite.'
Here we are at the rail now,--that's Susa. Be alive, for I see the
smoke, and the steam must be up."

They were just in time; the train was actually in motion when they
got in, and, as the Colonel, who kept up a rapid conversation with the
station-master, informed Tony, nothing would have induced them to delay
but having seen himself. "They knew me," said he; "they remembered my
coming down here