These monster excursions had never really appealed to Bettesworth's old-fashioned taste. Rather than be cooped up in a train, I remember he used to say, give him a quiet journey on the open road, afoot or by waggon, so that a man may "see the course o' the country," and if he comes to anything interesting, stop and look at it. And now, on his bed, the ill-humour he was displaying that morning vented itself again, in reference to a project he had heard of for another excursion. The Oddfellows' annual fête was at hand; and, he said, with a sneering intonation, "The secretary and some of they" (respectable new-fangled people, he meant) "wanted 'em to go to Portsmouth. So they called a full meetin', an' the meetin'"--ah, I have forgotten the turn of speech. It suggested that these officious persons, interfering to dictate how the working man should take his pleasure, had met with a well-deserved snub, since the excursion was voted down and the customary dinner was to be held. To myself, as to Bettesworth, this seemed the preferable course: "It's really better," I said. Then he, "So _'tis_, sir. It's the old, natural _way_. We _al_ways reckoned to have _one day_ in the year, when we all had holiday. And then everybody could join in--the women with their little childern, and all. 'Tis _nice_...."
Mentioning the endeavours of the Colonel and Mr. ---- to get a pension for him, I said, "They're very interested in it." "More so than what I be," he answered. Still, I urged, it was worth trying for; and as for the lost papers, duplicates of them might be obtained, if we knew the regiment. I was saying this, when with a sort of pride, though still irritably, the old man broke in, "I can tell ye _all_ that: regiment, an' regimental number, and officers, and all." At that I asked what was his regiment?
He stiffened his head and neck (was it just one last flicker of the so long forgotten soldier's smartness?) and said, "Forty-eighth, and my number was three nought nought seven.... I could name twenty people that knowed about my service. There's old Crum Callingham. He used to work for Sanders then, the coal merchant. The day I came back, didn't we have a booze, too! He was at work in Sanders's hop-garden, and I found 'n out, and two more, and I kep' sendin' for half-gallons.... Yes, that was the same day as I got 'ome--from Portsmouth."