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Updated: June 17, 2025
The idea of the plump sergeant bobbing about, half out of the water, like a cork-float, excited Dick's laughing muscles; but he saw how genuine was the distress of the poor fellow standing before him, and he forbore, knowing as he did that a good warm heart beat beneath that coating of fat and that Brumpton was a clever officer and devoted to his work.
I don't call that combination of a thing an officer!" "You be quiet," said Brumpton. "We've said enough as it is." "No, sir, we ain't! and, soldier or no soldier, I'm a man, and not going to have things like that spoken about my comrade and such a comrade as him!" "Be quiet, I tell you!" said Brumpton; and the man's tone and manner made Jerry forget that he was so pincushion-like in appearance.
I suppose we must have you, Smithson one flute will be enough. The 310th will furnish two violins and a 'cello. That ought to make a strong band." The men who did not play stringed instruments, or such as were suitable for a ball-room, looked disappointed; and Sergeant Brumpton, as he sat with his huge instrument between his legs, looked down into its great brass bell-mouth and sighed.
Wonder what he'd say to me if I told him the best thing he could do would be never to make another bet and never to touch a card again. I know he'd kick me." "Who would?" said someone at his elbow. "Hallo! You! Mr Brumpton? Was I talking aloud?" "Yes, quite aloud." "Then it's a bad habit, sir. I say, has young Smithson come back?" "No; I'm afraid he's gone, Brigley.
"Well, they did!" said Brumpton. "Oh, that's better! What did they say?" "As soon as he spoke like that, a lot of the men began to hiss." "Hiss!" cried Jerry, contemptuously; "why, a goose on Clapham Common could do that!"
"I say, why don't you make the tailor take all the padding away?" cried Dick. "I did beg and pray of him to, but he wouldn't. He said it would spoil my figure, and I should look fuller and fatter. Oh, dear! I never thought, after working as I have in the regiment, that I should live to be laughed at like this!" "Oh, don't mind that. I couldn't help laughing, too, Mr Brumpton.
There always was a bit of mystery about that young fellow. You had no idea that he was going off?" "Not I, or I should have let out at him. I say, they won't call it desertion, will they, Mr Brumpton?" "That's what they do call it; and, the worst of it is, he'll be punished." "Won't the colonel let him off easy as as he's a musician?" "How can they let him off easy?
"Stop! Look here!" cried Dick, so earnestly that the sergeant plumped down again into his seat, gazing wildly into the young man's face, ready to grasp at any straw to save himself from being drowned in his misery. "Yes, yes," he panted; and he began to wipe his big, smooth face. "Got an idea?" "I think I could cure you, Mr Brumpton." "Could you? How? I'll take anything. I don't mind how nasty."
And there at last, when Lady Brumpton finds out that the two young ladies are gone, she goes away in a rage to Lord Hardy's lodgings, and in an insulting manner she pays all due legacies, as she calls it, that is, she gives Lord Hardy the shilling, which, by her wicked arts, was all his father had left him; and she was insulting the young ladies, and glorying in her wickedness, when honest old Trusty came in, and brought in old Lord Brumpton, whom they imagined to be dead, and all but Lady Brumpton were greatly overjoyed to see him alive; but when he taxed her with her falsehood, she defied him, and said that she had got a deed of gift under his hand, which he could not revoke, and she WOULD enjoy his fortune in spite of him.
Upon which they all looked sadly vexed, till the good old Trusty went out and came in again, and brought in a man called Cabinet, who confessed himself the husband to the pretended Lady Brumpton, and that he was married to her half a year before she was married to my Lord Brumpton; but as my lord happened to fall in love with her, they agreed to keep their marriage concealed, in order that she should marry my lord, and cheat him in the manner she had done; and the reason that Cabinet came to confess all this was, that he looked into a closet and saw my lord writing, after he thought he was dead, and, taking it for his ghost, was by that means frightened into this confession, which he first made in writing to old Trusty, and therefore could not now deny it.
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