CHAPTER XIV

Summary

It goes much against the grain with me to begin a fresh journal on half a sheet, but it is an odd time for writing, so I must take what I can get and be thankful. The things are all put away for the night under the sentries. G. is sitting down to a dinner of forty men in red coats, ‘fathers and mothers unknown.’ F. W. and I have devoured such small cheer as St. Cloup would allow the kitmutgar to pick up from the outside of the kitchen at an early hour. W. O. is this moment gone off for his three weeks' tiger-shooting; and now there is just one hour before I need dress for the station ball, so that I devote to writing to you. We could not help laughing at our private dinner, considering what people say of the luxuries of the East, and of the state in which the Governor-General lives. The dinner was very good, thanks to its being stolen from St. Cloup's best company preparations; but we were in a small empty tent, lighted up by two candles and one night-lamp. The whole number of leaves of the dining-table were apparently wanted in the large tent, for they had given us a borrowed camp-table, two very dirty deal boards, covered with the marks of old slops, and of the rounds of glasses.