"You are wrong entirely, Cleary; nature intended me for a schoolmaster,
and it is just an accident that I have taken to soldiering. I flatter
meself that no one looks after his subalterns more sharply than I do. My
only fear is that I am too severe with them. I may be mild in my manners,
but they know me well enough to tremble if I speak sternly to them."

"The trembling would be with amusement," the adjutant grumbled. "Well, the
colonel has settled the matter, and Terence will be in Orders to-morrow as
appointed to O'Driscol's company, and the other to yours."

"Thank you for nothing, Cleary," O'Grady said, with dignity. "You would
have seen that under my tuition the lad would have turned out one of the
smartest officers in the regiment."

"You have heard of the Spartan way of teaching their sons to avoid
drunkenness, Captain O'Grady?"

"Divil a word, Cleary; but I reckon that the best way with the haythens
was to keep them from touching whisky. It is what I always recommend to
the men of my company when I come across one of them the worse for
liquor."

The adjutant laughed. "That was not the Spartan way, O'Grady; but the
advice, if taken, would doubtless have the same effect."

"And who were the Spartans at all?"

"I have not time to tell you now, O'Grady; I have no end of business on my
hands."