"Time for turning in. Will you do me a favour? Don't give me away about the
circus."

Somehow my esteem for him sank like thermometer mercury plunged into ice. I
had thought him, with the blazing record of achievement across his chest, a
man above such petty solicitude. His mild blue eyes searched my thoughts.

"I don't care a damn, Captain Hylton," said he, in a tone singularly
different from any that he had used in our pleasant talk--"if anybody knows
I was born in a stable. A far better man than I once had that privilege.
But as it happens that I am going out to command a brigade next week, it
would be to the interest of my authority and therefore to that of the army,
if no gossip led to the establishment of my identity."

"I assure you, sir----" I began stiffly--I was only a Captain, he, but for
a formality or two, a Brigadier-General.

He clapped his hands on my shoulders--and I swear his ugly, smiling face
was that of an angel.

"My dear fellow," said he, "so long as you regard me as an honest cuss,
nothing matters in the world."

I went to bed with the conviction that he was as honest a cuss as I had
ever met.




Chapter II