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Colonel Taubmann stared and gasped, but held his tongue. There was indeed a breadth of simplicity about Captain Pond–a seriousness, innocent and absolute, which positively forbade retort.

“Nay!” went on the worthy man. “Carry the argument out to its logical conclusion. If a soldier’s efficiency be reduced by ill-health, what shall we say of him when he is dead? A dead soldier–unless it be by the memory of his example–avails nothing. The active list knows him no more. He is gone, were he Alexander the Great and the late Marquis of Granby rolled into one. No energy of his repels the invader; no flash of his eye reassures the trembling virgin or the perhaps equally apprehensive matron. He lies in his place, and the mailed heel of Bellona–to borrow an expression of our Vicar’s–passes over him without a protest. I need not labour this point. The mere mention of it bears out my theory, and justifies the line I have taken in practice; that in these critical times, when Great Britain calls upon her sons to consolidate their ranks in the face of the Invader, it is of the first importance to keep as many as possible of them alive and in health.”

“Captain Pond has mounted his hobby, I see,” said the pretty Mayoress, coming forward at the conclusion of this harangue. “But you should hear my husband, sir, on the health-giving properties of Looe’s climate.”

Colonel Taubmann bowed gallantly. “Madam, I have no need. Your own cheeks bear a more eloquent testimony to it, I warrant, than any he could compose.”

“Well, and so they do, my love,” said the Doctor that evening, when she repeated this pretty speech to him. “But I don’t understand why you should add that anyone could tell he belonged to the regular service.”

“They have a way with them,” said the lady musingly, gazing out of window.

“Why, my dear, have I not paid you before now a score of compliments as neat?”

“Now don’t be huffed, darling!–of course you have. But, you see, it came as pat with him as if he had known me all my life: and I’ll engage that he has another as pat for the next woman he meets.”

“I don’t doubt it,” agreed her spouse: “and if that’s what you admire, perhaps you would like me to compliment and even kiss every pretty girl in the place. There’s no saying what I can’t do if I try.”

“Please don’t be a goose, dear! I never said a Volunteer wasn’t more comfortable to live with. Those professionals are here to-day and gone tomorrow–sometimes even sooner.”

“Not to mention,” added the Doctor, more than half-seriously, “that life with them is dreadfully insecure.”

“Oh! I would never seriously advise a friend of mine to marry a regular soldier. Hector dear, to be left a widow must be terrible! . . . But you did deserve to be teased, for never saying a word about my tea-party. How do you think it went off? And haven’t you a syllable of praise for the way I had polished the best urn? Why, you might have seen your face in it!”

“So I might, my love, no doubt: but my eyes were occupied in following you.”

Yes, the day had been a wonderful success, as Captain Pond remarked after waving good-bye to his visitor and watching his chaise out of sight upon the Plymouth road. The Colonel’s manner had been so affable, his appreciation of Looe and its scenery and objects of interest so whole-hearted, he had played his part in the day’s entertainment with so unmistakable a zest!

“We are lucky,” said Captain Pond. “Suppose, now, he had turned out to be some cross-grained martinet . . . the type is not unknown in the regular forces.”

“He was intelligent, too,” chimed in the Doctor,–“unlike some soldiers I have met whose horizon has been bounded by the walls of their barrack-square. Did you observe the interest he took in my account of our Giant’s Hedge? He fully agreed with me that it must be pre-Roman, and allowed there was much to be said for the theory which ascribes it to the Druids.”