Doctor himself. It would make you die of laughing!"

He regaled the ladies of the regiment with Clive's letters, and those of
Miss Honeyman, which contained an account of the boy. He even bored some
of his bearers with this prattle; and sporting young men would give or
take odds that the Colonel would mention Clive's name, once before five
minutes, three times in ten minutes, twenty-five times in the course of
dinner, and so on. But they who laughed at the Colonel laughed very
kindly; and everybody who knew him, loved him; everybody, that is, who
loved modesty, and generosity, and honour.

At last the happy time came for which the kind father had been longing
more passionately than any prisoner for liberty, or schoolboy for
holiday. Colonel Newcome has taken leave of his regiment, leaving Major
Tomkinson, nothing loth, in command. He has travelled to Calcutta; and
the Commander-in-Chief, in general orders, has announced that in giving
to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., of the Bengal Cavalry, leave
for the first time, after no less than thirty-four years' absence from
home, "he (Sir George Hustler) cannot refrain from expressing his sense
of the great and meritorious services of this most distinguished officer,
who has left his regiment in a state of the highest discipline and
efficiency." And now the ship has sailed, the voyage is over, and once
more, after so many long years, the honest soldier's foot is on his
native shore.




CHAPTER VI