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 have to fight against!" he exclaimed,
rather hotly.