" Why, Lord bless me! it's only a few months since I paid £30,000 for that very lot, and they've done nothing, I hear, but stand at their picket ropes ever since. They cost me, I'm sure, carriage and all, £100 a-piece. What do you think I'll get for them?"
" Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I don't think as how they'll fetch more than £10 a-head, if so much."
To speak plainly, for the old gentleman's peace of mind, I would not advise him to be too inquisitive, and a visit to the camp, when in its most nourishing condition and healthy aspect, might injure his nerves irremediably.
"Who are those fellows in that secluded valley, hunting among the vines for some grapes, while their horses are left to wander through the neglected gardens?"
" They belong to Division A, or B, or 0, or D; see the letter branded upon the horses' flanks. They are Turks, Elamites, Affghans, dwellers in Mesopotamia, Kurds, Parthians, Canaanites, Greeks, for whose services in the Land Transport Corps you, John, pay daily the sum of 3s. per man, and they ought now to be carrying up provisions for yonr soldiers; but, being philosophers of the Epicurean school, they prefer the pursuit of the grape and the insouciance of the siesta to tramping over dusty roads, or urging their mad career down stony ravines on thy much be-whacked quadrupeds!"
"And those miles of mules and carts winding all along the plain, emerging from ravines, ascending hills, and that vast army of drivers in quaint attire, the concentration of the floating vagabondage of the world, the flotsam and jetsam of the social life of every nation, civil and barbarous, on earth — to whom do they belong, and who pays them and for them? "
" Even you, my dear sir, and very handsomely too, I can assure you."
" And those ships in Balaklava? "
" Tours again, sir; but don't be uneasy; things are managed better there now; occasionally the authorities root out a great demurrager, and send her off hopping after she has lain perdu some months doing nothing. The other day the Walmer Castle, a fine Indiaman, sir, was sent off at last — she had been in Balaklava since February, doing nothing but affording comfortable lodgings for a few of the authorities. But we won't talk of these things any more, for really the arrangements are much improved."