IT MUST be confessed that Captain Ormsby and Major M'Intyre were two very different sort of men to Mr. Ferrers. Never were two such gay, noisy, pleasant, commonplace persons. They were '_on leave_' from one of the Mediterranean garrisons, had scampered through Italy, shot red-legged partridges all along the Barbary coast, and even smoked a pipe with the Dey of Algiers. They were intoxicated with all the sights they had seen, and all the scrapes they had encountered, which they styled 'regular adventures': and they insisted upon giving everyone a description of what everybody had heard or seen. In consequence of their arrival, Mr. Ferrers discontinued dining with his accustomed host; and resumed his old habit of riding up to the casino, every evening, on his Barbary ass, to eat oranges and talk to the Consul's daughter.
'I suppose you know Florence, Mr. Ferrers?' said Major M'Intyre.
'St. Peter's, of course, you have seen?' said Captain Ormsby.
'But have you seen it during Holy Week?' said the major. 'That's the thing.'
'Ah, I see you have been everywhere,' said the captain: 'Algiers, of course?'
'I never was at Algiers,' replied Mr. Ferrers, quite rejoiced at the circumstance; and he walked away, and played with the gazelle.
'By Jove,' said the major, with elevated eyes, 'not been at Algiers! why, Mr. Consul, I thought you said Mr. Ferrers was a very great traveller indeed; and he has not been at Algiers! I consider Algiers more worth seeing than any place we ever visited. Don't you, Ormsby?'
The Consul inquired whether he had met any compatriots at that famous place. The military travellers answered that they had not; but that Lord Bohun's yacht was there; and they understood his lordship was about to proceed to this island. The conversation for some time then dwelt upon Lord Bohun, and his adventures, eccentricities, and wealth. But Captain Ormsby finally pronounced 'Bohun a devilish good fellow.'
'Do you know Lord Bohun?' inquired Mr. Ferrers.
'Why, no!' confessed Captain Ormsby: 'but he is a devilish intimate friend of a devilish intimate friend of mine.'
Mr. Ferrers made a sign to Miss Ponsonby; she rose, and followed him into the garden. 'I cannot endure the jabber of these men,' said Mr. Ferrers.