A Double Knot

“Not going, nurse? Why?”

“The new Lancer regiment is coming to the barracks this morning, and your aunts say some of the officers may be about.”

Volume One – Chapter Two.

His Uncle’s Nephew

“Why didn’t I come? Why should I? Very kind of Lady Millet to ask me, but I’m not a society man.”

“Oh, but – ”

“Yes, I know, lad. Did the affair go off well?”

“Splendidly, only mamma left the wine to the confectioner, and the champagne – ”

“Gave you a horrible headache, eh? Serve you right; should have had toast-and-water.”

“Marcus!”

“So Malpas came, did he?”

“Yes. Bad form, too. I don’t like him, Glen. But that’s all over now. Fellow can’t always marry the woman he wants.”

“Can’t he?”

“No, of course not. I wish you had come, though.”

“Thank you! But you speak in riddles, my little Samson. What’s all over now, and what fellow can’t always marry the woman he wants? Speak out, small sage!”

“I say, Glen, I didn’t make myself.”

“True, O king!”

“’Tisn’t my fault I’m small.”

“True.”

“You do chaff me so about my size.”

“For the last time: now proceed, and don’t lisp and drawl. Who’s who? as Bailey says.”

“I thought I told you before about my sisters?”

“Often: that you have two pretty sisters – one married and one free.”

“Well, my married sister, Mrs Morrison, used, I think, to care for Major Malpas.”

“Sorry she had such bad taste.”

This in an undertone.

“Eh?”

“Go on.”

“Well, it didn’t go on or come off, as you call it.”

“As you call it, Dicky.”

“I say, don’t talk to me as if I were a bird.”

“All right. Now then, let me finish for you: mamma married the young lady to someone else, and there is just a fag-end of the old penchant left.”

“Oh, hang it, no!”

“I beg pardon! – the young lady’s, too. But, my dear Dick, I am one of the most even-tempered of men; but if you keep up that miserable fashionable drawl and lisp, I shall take hold of you and shake you.”

“But, my dear fellow – weally, Mawcus.”

“Am I to do it? Say ‘Marcus’ out plain.”

“Mawcus.”

“No! Marcus.”

“Marcus.”

“That’s better. There, hang it all, Dick, you are a soldier; for heaven’s sake be one. Try to be manly, old fellow, and pitch over those silly affectations.”

“It’s all very well for you,” said Dick Millet, in an ill-used tone. “You are naturally manly. Why, you are five feet ten at least, and broad-shouldered and strong.”

“While you are only about five feet two, and slight, and have a face as smooth as a girl’s.”

“Five feet three and a half,” said the other quickly.

“How do you know?”

“I made the sergeant put me under the standard this morning. I can’t help it if I haven’t got a heavy brown moustache like you!”

“Who said you could help it, stupid? Why, what a little gander you are, Dick! I’m eight-and-twenty, and you are eighteen.”

“Nineteen!”

“Well, nineteen, then. There, there, you are only a boy yet, so why not be content to be a boy? You’ll grow old quite fast enough, my dear lad. Do you know why I like you?”

“Well, not exactly. But you do like me, don’t you, Glen?”

“Like you? Yes, when you are what I see before me now, boyish and natural. When you put on those confounded would-be manly airs, and grow affected and mincing as some confounded Burlington Arcade dandy, I think to myself, What a contemptible little puppy it is!”