"Charley," asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan,
"how is the regiment going on? Insolvent as ever?"
"More so," was the reply. "When I came away they were thinking of
framing a L5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we
had _some_ money--just like the man who pitched loaves over the
city-walls when they were dying of famine--but there was a difficulty
about procuring one. However, we have been promised the son of an
opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes
something to drink), who is to join before Easter. Perhaps he may set us
afloat again."
"Yes," Guy remarked; "fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the
Third Estate. _Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre_. If there is one moneyed
man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often
wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your
Croesus. You deserve statues--as Sydney Smith would have said--_aeris
alieni_."
"I am not the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester,
sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern
arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of
Bendemeer to the tradesmen.
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