warmed his chocolate, and even his bed. Nothing came amiss to him,
and he to nothing. Lancelot longed at first every hour to be rid of
him, and eyed him about the room as a bulldog does the monkey who
rides him. In his dreams he was Sinbad the Sailor, and Bracebridge
the Old Man of the Sea; but he could not hold out against the
colonel's merry bustling kindliness, and the almost womanish
tenderness of his nursing. The ice thawed rapidly; and one evening
it split up altogether, when Bracebridge, who was sitting drawing by
Lancelot's sofa, instead of amusing himself with the ladies below,
suddenly threw his pencil into the fire, and broke out, a propos de
rien--

'What a strange pair we are, Smith! I think you just the best
fellow I ever met, and you hate me like poison--you can't deny it.'

There was something in the colonel's tone so utterly different from
his usual courtly and measured speech, that Lancelot was taken
completely by surprise, and stammered out,--

'I--I--I--no--no. I know I am very foolish--ungrateful. But I do
hate you,' he said, with a sudden impulse, 'and I'll tell you why.'

'Give me your hand,' quoth the colonel: 'I like that. Now we shall
see our way with each other, at least.'

'Because,' said Lancelot slowly, 'because you are cleverer than I,
readier than I, superior to me in every point.'

The colonel laughed, not quite merrily. Lancelot went on, holding
down his shaggy brows.