"Did I iver tell ye," asked ex-Sergeant O'Reilly, filling his pipe from my tobacco-jar, "about the red wine?" "I remember a story about sparkling Burgundy," I said. "Och, that wouldn't be it at all. 'Twas another time altogither." "Well," I said, "tell me about the red wine." "'Twas this way." O'Reilly leant back in his chair, covered his maimed hand with a pocket-handkerchief--a curious way he had--and looked at me with that expression of openness and simplicity which demands confidence. "We was 'way back o' the line at the time, at a place where ye'd expect to get a taste o' rest; but what wid fancy attacks an' 'special coorses' (thim 's the divil an' all!) there wasn't enough rest for an honest man to get into mischief. Well, there was to be a grand inshpection by a tremenjus brass-hat, one o' thim soort all over ribbons that rides wid a shtiff back. 'Twas the mornin' before the great day whin the O.C. comes to me all of a flutter, an' says he, 'Sergint, ye've a chanct now to do me a good turn.' "'I'll do it, Sorr,' says I, 'if it costs me my shtripes.' "'The fact is,' says he, 'we've run out o' claret, an' there's no dacent shtuff to be had for twinty miles round; annyway, that's what I'm tould. Now the Gin'ral has a great fancy for red wine.' "''Tis a sad business,' says I. "'I've heard it whispered,' says the poor man, an' he wid the D.S.O. an' all, 'that where there's a good dhrop o' dhrink you're the man to find it. An',' says he, 'there's no discredit to ye in that, O'Reilly.' "'Indeed no, Sorr,' says I; ''tis a gift.' "'Well,' says he, 'would ye use that same gift of yours for the honour o' the Rig'mint?'" O'Reilly felt in his pocket for a tobacco-stopper, attended carefully to his pipe and again fixed me with his candid gaze. "'There's a bit of a place 'way back,' says I, 'where I've a fancy I might find somethin'.' "Wid that he shtuck a bunch o' notes in me hand. 'Don't shpare the cost,' says he, 'but get it. 'Tis up to you, Sergint, to save a disp'rit situation.'" "It was a terrible responsibility," I said. "Ye may say that. Whin I was alone wid thim notes bulgin' in me tunic, I'd a notion I might let down the Rig'mint afther all, an' that would have bruk me heart. But off I wint to see Achille. 'Twas four miles to the village, an' I wint on my blessed feet, an' by the time I got to the place I was as nervous as a mouse in a thrap. Achille's shop wasn't a café or an estaminet or a buvette or anny o' thim places. He had a bit of a brass plate on his door wid 'Marchand de Vins' on it. I knew him by raison of a fancy that took me wan day for a dhrop o' brandy. So I wint in through Achille's door wid thim notes as hot in me pocket as Patsy Donelly's pipe. "Achille hopped out o' the little room at the hack same's a bird out of a cage. 'Ah,' says he, 'that was good cognac, eh? You shall have more, me son.'