Scipio, its cook and compounder, bore it with professional pride, supporting the dish on one palm bent backwards, and held accurately level with his shoulder; whence, by a curious and quite indescribable turn of the wrist (Scipio was double-jointed), during which for one fearful tenth of a second they seemed to hang upside down, he would bring tray, lamp, dish and omelet down with a sweep, and deposit them accurately in front of the Major's plate, at the same instant bringing his heels together and standing at attention for his master's approval.
"Well done, Scipio!" the Major would say, nine days out of ten.
But to-day he pushed the tray from him pettishly, ignoring Scipio.
"You'll excuse me"-- he turned to the Vicar--"but if what you say is correct (you may go, Scipio) it puts me in a position of some responsibility." "I felt sure you would see it in that light.

It's a responsibility for me, too." "To-day is the twenty-fifth.

We have little more than a month." "What am I to say in church next Sunday ?" "Why, as for that, you must say nothing.

Good Heavens! is this a time for adding to the disquietude of men's minds ?" "I had thought," the Vicar confessed, "of memorialising the Government." "Addington!" The Major's tone whenever he had occasion to mention Mr.
Addington was a study in scornful expression.

He himself had once memorialised the Prime Minister for a couple of nineteen-pounders which, with the two on the Old Fort, would have made our harbour impregnable.