“No, we have not much time for letter-writing,” he said, absently.

Indeed, it was well for him that he had this companion who could talk to him in her quiet, low tones; for he was out of spirits and inclined to be silent; and certainly he had no wish to join in the frothy discussion which Octavius Quirk had started at the upper end of the table.  Mr. Mellord, the famous Academician, had taken in Lady Adela to dinner; but she had placed Mr. Quirk on her left hand; and from this position of authority he was roaring away like any sucking-dove and challenging everybody to dispute his windy platitudes.  Lord Rockminster, down at the other end, mute and in safety, was looking on at this motley little assemblage, and probably wondering what his three gifted sisters would do next.  It was hard that he had no Miss Georgie Lestrange to amuse him; perhaps Miss Georgie had been considered ineligible for admission into this intellectual coterie.  Poor man!—­and to think he might have been dining in solitary comfort at his club, at a quiet little table, with two candles, and a Sunday paper propped up by the water-bottle!  But he betrayed no impatience; he sat and looked and meditated.

However, when dinner was over and the ladies had left the room, he had to go and take his sister’s place, so that he found himself in the thick of the babble.  Mr. Quirk was no longer goring spiders’ webs; he was now attacking a solid and substantial subject—­nothing less than the condition of the British army; and a pretty poor opinion he seemed to have of it.  As it chanced, the only person who had seen service was Lord Rockminster (at Knightsbridge), but he did not choose to open his mouth, so that Mr. Quirk had it all his way—­except when Maurice Mangan thought it worth while to give him a cuff or a kick, just by way of reminding him that he was mortal.  Ichabod, in silence, stuck to the port wine.  Quincey Hooper, the American journalist, drew in a chair by the side of Lord Rockminster and humbly fawned.  And meanwhile Quirk, head downward, so to speak, charged rank and file, and sent them flying; arose again and swept the heads off officers; and was just about to annihilate the volunteers when Mangan interrupted him.

“Oh, you expect too much,” he said, in his slow and half-contemptuous fashion.  “The British soldier is not over well-educated, I admit; but you needn’t try him by an impossible standard.  I dare say you are thinking of ancient days when a Roman general could address his troops in Latin and make quite sure of being understood; but you can’t expect Tommy Atkins to be so learned.  And our generals, as you say, may chiefly distinguish themselves at reviews; but the reviews they seem to me to be too fond of are those published monthly.  As for the volunteers—­”

“You will have a joke about them, too, I suppose,” Quirk retorted.  “An excellent subject for a joke—­the safety of the country!  A capital subject for a merry jest; Nero fiddling with Rome in flames—­”