“Far better,” Mister Belling said enthusiastically. “A battlefield commission, Mister Sharpe? ‘Pon my soul, but that’s a rare thing. Rare!”

“An admirable thing!” Mister Brown added.

“Most admirable,” Mister Belling agreed energetically, “a battlefield commission! Up from the ranks! Why, it’s a—” he paused, trying to think what it was—“it’s a veritable achievement!”

“But it is not”—Mister Brown spoke delicately, his plump hands opening and closing like a butterfly’s wings—“fungible.”

“Precisely.” Mister Selling’s manner exuded relief that his partner had found the exact word to settle the matter. “It is not fungible, Mister Sharpe.”

No one spoke for a few seconds. A coal hissed, rain spattered on the office window and a carter’s whip cracked in the street, which was filled with the rumble, crash and squeal of wagons and carriages.

“Fungible?” Lieutenant Richard Sharpe asked.

“The commission cannot be exchanged for cash,” Mister Belling explained. “You did not buy it, you cannot sell it. You were given it. What the King gives, you may give back but you cannot sell. It is not”—he paused—“fungible.”

“I was told I could sell it!” Sharpe said angrily.

“You were told wrong,” Mister Brown said.

“Misinformed,” Mister Belling added.

“Grievously so,” Mister Brown said, “alas.”

“The regulations are plain,” Mister Belling went on. “An officer who purchases a commission is free to sell it, but a man awarded a commission is not. I wish it were otherwise.”

“We both do!” Mister Brown said.

“But I was told… ”

“You were told wrong,” Mister Belling snapped, then wished he had not spoken so brusquely for Lieutenant Sharpe started forward in his chair as though he was going to attack the two men.

Sharpe checked himself. He looked from the plump Mister Brown to the scrawny Mister Belling. “So there’s nothing you can do?”