The sergeant laughed. "It's Army pay, mate, as does it. I get a fine, easy life, good clothes and food, and plenty of money for my glass of beer. Where did you sleep last night?" he asked suddenly. "If I do mind me right," said John Williams, "it were in a leaky barn, over Newton way." "Where are you going to sleep to-night?" asked the sergeant again. Williams remembered his empty pocket. "I doan't know," he said with regret. "Most likely on some seat in the park." "Well, you come along o' me, and you'll get a comfortable barricks to sleep in, a life as you likes, and a bob a day to spend on yourself." John Williams listened to the dripping of the rain outside. To his bemused brain the thought of a "comfortable barricks" was very, very tempting. "Blame me if I doan't come along o' thee," he said at length. In wartime a medical examination is soon over and an attestation paper filled up. "There's nothing wrong with you, my man," said the Medical Officer, "except that you're half drunk." "I bean't drunk, mister," protested Williams sleepily. "We'll take you at your word, anyhow," said the doctor. "You're too good a man physically to lose for the Army." Thus it was that John Williams took the King's Shilling, and swore to serve his country as a soldier should. * * * * * One of the most wonderful things about the British Army is the way that recruits are gradually fashioned into soldiers. There are thousands of men fighting on our different fronts who, a year ago, hated the thought of discipline and order; they are now amongst the best soldiers we have. But there are exceptions--Private John Williams was one. In a little over a year of military service, he had absented himself without leave no fewer than eleven times, and the various punishments meted out to him failed signally in their object to break him of his habit. In every respect save one he was a good soldier, but, do what it would, the Army could not bring him to see the folly of repeated desertion; the life in the Army is not the life for a man with the wander thirst of centuries in his blood. Williams had all the gipsy's love of wandering and solitude, and not even a threatened punishment of death will cure a man of that.