"
"But you are occupying it yourself, sir. What good will that do,
Shortridge?"
"Oh, I will give it up to Shortridge. It is quite thrown away on a
bachelor like me. Now I am on duty again, I prefer being near the
regiment, and shall take rooms at the barracks."
"Shortridge will be exceedingly obliged to you. But," added Meynell,
fishing for information, "I did not think you cared a farthing whether
the commissary got into good quarters or no."
"The commissary!" said L'Isle, looking round on his companion with an
air of surprise; then he added, in a tone of contempt, "he may lie in
a ditch. Many a better man has done it. It is Mrs. Commissary for whom
I would find good quarters."
"Oh, indeed!" said Meynell, elevating his eyebrows a good deal, "I
overlooked that. But I was not aware that you had ever seen her."
"Oh, many times: in Lisbon, last year. Indeed, on one occasion I did
her a well-timed service."
"What was that?--if I may be allowed to ask."
"Why, Mrs. Shortridge, though an excellent woman, is a little
afflicted with the disease of sight-seeing, and had thrust herself,
with a party of other heretics, into the Patriarchal Church, to
witness the rending of the veil.
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