"How did it end?"

"The valet mentioned something about wages and assault warrants, so I was
given to him to make the matter up. Between you and I, the Cornet was very
hard up."

"Indeed!"

"Certain of it. You remember the French-grey trousers we used to walk out
with--those he strapped so tight over the remarkably chatty and pleasant
French-polished boots whose broken English we used to admire so much?"

"Of course I do; they were the most charming greys I ever met. They beat
the plaids into fits; and the plaids were far from ungentlemanly, only
they would always talk with a sham Scotch accent, and quote the 'Cotter's
Saturday Night.'"

"Certainly that was a drawback. But to return to our friends, and the
Cornet's friends, they must have been bad, for those very greys were
seated."

"Impossible!"

"Fact, I assure you. My tails were pinned over the patch for three weeks."

"How did they bear it?"

"Shockingly. A general break up of the constitution--went all to pieces.
First, decay appeared in the brace buttons; then the straps got out of