And the worst of it is, it was true
entirely. If I could but find a pretty cousin shut up in a convent you
would see that I would not be backward in doing what had to be done; but
no such luck comes to me at all, at all."
"Quite so, O' Grady; I have had tremendous luck. And it has all come about
owing to my happening to think it would be a good thing to take possession
of that French lugger."
"Don't you think it, me boy," O'Grady said, seriously. "No doubt a man may
have a turn of luck, though it is not everyone who takes advantage of it
when it comes. But when you see a man always succeeding, always doing
something that other fellows don't do, and making his way up step by step,
you may put it down that luck has very little to do with the matter, and
that he has got something in him that other men haven't got. You may have
had some luck to start with--enough, perhaps, to have got you your
lieutenancy, though I don't say that it was luck; but you cannot put the
rest of it down to that."
At this moment Dick Ryan came and joined them.
"Well, Dicky," Terence said, "have you had no fun lately in the regiment?"
"Not a scrap," Ryan said, dismally. "There was not much chance of fun on
that long march; on board ship there was a storm all the way; then we were
kept on board the transport at Cork nearly three months.
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