never sat on a stool) with a benign smile.

"Oh, very, very much indeed," cried Charley; "but even should father
agree to stay all night at the fort, I have no horse, and I'm sure he
would not let me have the mare after what I did to-day."

"Do you think he's not open to persuasion?" said the senior clerk.

"No, I'm sure he's not."

"Well, well, it don't much signify; perhaps we can mount you."
(Charley's face brightened.) "Go," he continued, addressing Harry
Somerville--"go, tell Tom Whyte I wish to speak to him."

Harry sprang from his stool with a suddenness and vigour that might
have justified the belief that he had been fixed to it by means of a
powerful spring, which had been set free with a sharp recoil, and
shot him out at the door, for he disappeared in a trice. In a few
minutes he returned, followed by the groom Tom Whyte.

"Tom," said the senior clerk, "do you think we could manage to mount
Charley to-morrow?"

"Why, sir, I don't think as how we could. There ain't an 'oss in the
stable except them wot's required and them wot's badly."

"Couldn't he have the brown pony?" suggested the senior clerk.

Tom Whyte was a cockney and an old soldier, and stood so bolt upright
that it seemed quite a marvel how the words ever managed to climb up