“Dat is what you call gorilla warfare,” said Von Baumser, with a proud consciousness of having mastered an English idiom.  “For all dat, discipline is a very fine thing—­very good indeed.  I vell remember in the great krieg—­the war with Austria—­we had made a mine and were about to fire it.  A sentry had been placed just over this, and after the match was lit it was forgotten to withdraw the man.  He knew well that the powder beneath him would presently him into the air lift, but since he had not been dismissed in right form he remained until the ausbruch had exploded.  He was never seen no more, and, indeed, dat he had ever been dere might well have been forgotten, had it not been dat his nadelgewehr was dere found.  Dat was a proper soldier, I think, to be placed in command had he lived.”

“To be placed in a lunatic asylum if he lived,” said the Irishman testily.  “Hullo, what’s this?”

The “this” was the appearance of the boarding-house slavey with a very neat pink envelope upon a tray, addressed, in the most elegant of female hands, to “Major Tobias Clutterbuck, late of Her Majesty’s Hundred and Nineteenth.”

“Ah!” cried Von Baumser, laughing in his red beard, “it is from a woman.  You are what the English call a sly hog, a very sly hog—­or, I should say, dog, though it is much the same.”

“It’s for you as well as for me.  See here.  ’Mrs. Lavinia Scully presints her compliments to Major Tobias Clutterbuck and to his friend, Mr. Sigismund von Baumser, and trusts that they may be able to favour her with their company on Tuesday evening at eight, to meet a few frinds.’  It’s a dance,” said the major.  “That accounts for the harp and the tables and binches and wine cases I saw going in this morning.”

“Will you go?”

“Yes, of course I will, and so shall you.  We’d better answer it.”

So in due course an acceptance was sent across to Mrs. Scully’s hospitable invitation.

Never was there such a brushing and scrubbing in the bedroom of a couple of quiet bachelors as occurred some two evenings afterwards in the top story of Mrs. Robins’ establishment.  The major’s suit had been pursued unremittingly since his first daring advance upon the widow, but under many difficulties and discouragements.  In the occasional chance interviews which he had with his attractive neighbour he became more and more enamoured, but he had no opportunity of ascertaining whether the feeling was mutual.  This invitation appeared to promise him the very chance which he desired, and many were the stern resolutions which he formed as he stood in front of his toilet-table and arranged his tie and his shirt front to his satisfaction.  Von Baumser, who was arrayed in a dress coat of antiquated shape, and very shiny about the joints, sat on the side of the bed, eyeing his companion’s irreproachable get-up with envy and admiration.

“It fits you beautiful,” he said, alluding to the coat.