36G WITH KITCHENEK IN THE SOUDAN and over again to get himself acknowledged, but the courts would not hear of it, and told him that it was no use applying until they had proof of the death of your father. I know all about it, because there was a howling young ass in the regiment from which I exchanged. He was always giving himself airs on the strength of the title he expected to get, and if he is still in the regiment there will be general rejoicings at his downfall.”

Then I have met him,” Gregory said. “ On the way up he made himself very unpleasant, and I heard from the other officers that he was extremely unpopular. The Major spoke very sharply to him for the offensive tone in which he addressed me; and an officer sitting next to me said that he was terribly puffed by his expectations of obtaining a title shortly, owing to the disappearance of those who stood before him in succession. Some of the officers chaffed him about it then. I remember now that his name was Hartley; but as I had no idea at that time that that was also mine, I never thought anything more about it until now. As he was the only officer who has been in any way offensive to me since I left Cairo nearly three years ago, certainly I would rather that he should be the sufferer, if I succeed in proving my right to the title, than anyone else.”

I don’t think he will suffer except in pride,” the officer said. ‘His father, who was a very distant cousin of the Earl’s, had gone into trade and made a considerable fortune, so that the young fellow was a great deal better off than the vast majority of men in the army. It was the airs he gave himself, on the strength of being able to indulge in an expenditure such as no one else in the regiment could attempt '—by keeping three or four race-horses in training, and other follies—that had more to do with his unpopularity than his constant talk about the peerage he was so confident of getting.”

Of course you will go home to England at once,” Colonel Wingate said. “ The war is over now, and it would be rank