CHAPTER III.
HOW JOHNNY POUNCE CAME BACK TO THE GOOD AGAIN.
"Cole, I shall want you at my quarters immediately after inspection."
"Very good, sir."
The scene of this remarkable dialogue was the Crimea before Sebastopol; the speakers were our old friend Captain Redfern of Her Majesty's 16th Lancers, and Private John Cole of the same regiment, and regimental servant to Captain Redfern aforesaid.
Young John had proved to be too tall a man, and too heavy for the friendly recruiting-sergeant's corps, so he had been posted to a crack Lancer regiment then serving in the Crimea. In this regiment Captain Redfern held a commission, and as he went out in command of recruits, of whom young John was one, he was under the necessity of selecting one of them to act as a regimental servant during the voyage. His choice fell upon young John, who being extremely lazy and, moreover, utterly indifferent as to the future in store for him, accepted the situation.
Redfern and John got on exceedingly well together. John's superior education made him extremely useful to his master in many ways, and as Redfern was a particularly open-handed man, he and John became, in a distant sort of way, attached to each other. Redfern spent much of his spare time in poring over deeds and other legal documents referring to the estate of which he had become possessed through Pintle's death; and as
