And this was the type in Colonel Corkleg’s corps. Jim Longlegs, the senior sub, was cox of the Cambridge boat. His nose had been flattened while learning the noble art of self-defence. He could tear a pack of cards with his hands, and crack an iron bar over his knee. He was clean-limbed and alert, good at a spree, and if he did like a whisky-and-soda, he could drink it as Luther did, in the manner of a gentleman. Cocky Dan was an impish sprite from a public school. He was five feet of delightful impudence and daring. His nose was always stuck in the Maxim gun. This tricky machine was his hobby and his job. When he rode alongside of it on his piebald charger he resembled a beaming boy scout with the all-round cords. Cocky Dan was a name that suited him. And then there was Willie Winkie, the sausage merchant’s son, who tried so hard to be a gentleman. He would have been a perfect gentleman if he hadn’t worried too much about ’Etiquette for Officers,’ and that other social handbook, ’Manners made Easy.’ Billy Isaacs was hampered by his name. Not that he was a Jew, but, as he said himself, one of his female ancestors had got mixed up in a money-lending affair with a Hebrew, who was financing her fads in silks, port, and rouge. To save the family pewter and the old manorial brick bungalow, she married the man, and thus hampered a decent fellow with a hooked proboscis and an ikey name. Still, he was a devil at finance, and almost sent the colour-sergeant insane when he balanced a halfpenny out in his pay-sheet. Then there was Gerald Hay Du Patti Brown, who made the dickens of a row about some of his people coming over with William the Conqueror. This carried him far till Second Lieutenant Briefs discovered in the Doomsday Book that his ancestor was a pioneer-sergeant in the army which landed at Hastings in 1066. Still, he was a good fellow, and always willing to stand a port the day before the month’s pay was due. Brown’s boon companion was Giddy Greens, a husky youth intimate with the musical comedy stars. He had only a hundred a year, and was always dodging the Jews. His suits were easily the best, for the reason that he changed his tailor monthly and always burnt their bills. But there, one might rave for ever about the subalterns of this famous corps. Now, the billets in which they were lodged at Mudtown was hardly in keeping with their tastes. It was a musty manor, with a touch of age and a scent of dead cats. Dirt was rampant and barrenness profound. Where the pictures once hung they found great holes, while through the windows came sparrows, bats, and rain. The floor was rotten, indeed Colonel Corkleg lost his artificial stump in a mouldy corner of his room. There wasn’t a bath. All had to wash themselves in biscuit tins, and wipe their faces on a greasy roller towel. As to the kitchen, only a single fire remained to cook soup, fish, entrees, and sweets. These had to be served up on one old kitchen table. "This is——" muttered the colonel.