nted to be sympathized with. "Beaumaroy, do you know that girl's
story?" Beaumaroy shook his head, and listened to it. Captain Alec ended
on his old note: "To think of the scoundrel using the King's uniform
like that!"

"Rotten! But, er, don't raise your voice." He pointed to the ceiling,
smiling, and went on without further comment on Cynthia's ill-usage. "I
suppose you intend to stick to the army, Naylor?"

"Yes, certainly I do."

"I'm discharged. After I came out of hospital they gave me sick leave,
and constantly renewed it; and when the armistice came they gave me my
discharge. They put it down to my wound, of course, but--well, I gathered
the impression that I was considered no great loss." He had finished his
pipe, and was now smiling reflectively.

Captain Alec did not smile. Indeed he looked rather pained; he was
remembering General Punnit's story: military inefficiency, even military
imperfection, was for him no smiling matter. Beaumaroy did not appear to
notice his disapproving gravity.

"So I was at a loose end. I had sold up my business in Spain; I was there
six or seven years, just as Captain--Captain--? Oh, Cranster, yes!--was
in Bogota--when I joined up, and had no particular reason for going back
there--and, incidentally, no money to go back with. So I took on this
job, which came to me quite accidentally. I went into a Piccadilly bar
one evening, and found my old man there, rather excited and declaiming a
good deal of rot; seemed to have the war a bit on his brain. They started
in to guy him, and I think one or two meant to hustle him, and perhaps
take his money off him. I took his part, and there was a bit of a
shindy. In the end I saw him home to his lodgings--he had a room in
London for the night--and, to cut a long story short, we palled up, and
he asked me to come and live with him. So here I am, and with me my
Sancho Panza, the worthy ex-Sergeant Hooper. Perhaps I may be forgiven
for impliedly comparing myself to Don Quixote, since that gentleman,
besides his other characteristics, is generally agreed to have been mad."

"Your Sancho Panza's no beauty," remarked the Captain drily.

"And no saint either. Kicked out of the Service, and done time. That
between ourselves."

"Then why the devil do you have the fellow about?"

"Beggars mustn't be choosers. Besides, I've a _penchant_ for failures."

That was what General Punnit had said! Alec Naylor grew impatient.
"That's the very spirit we