"'Twas two days after war was declared," Bill was saying, "and I was down in the kitchen waitin' till it was time to go out till my job. I was always an early riser. Upstairs I heard John singin' like a thrush. 'What's wrong with him?' I says till myself, for, though he was a good, willin' cub, he was not an early riser. When he came down I says till him, 'What's up wid ye this mornin'?' I says. 'I'm goin' till jine up,' he says. It most took my breath away. 'But ye're not only eighteen come the end of next week,' I says till him. 'But I can be nineteen at a pinch,' he answers, and what was to be said to that? I ups and shakes him by the hand. 'Ye're a man, that's what ye are,' I says till him. 'And where are ye goin' to jine up?' I asks him. 'In the town,' he says, meanin' the town nearest where there was a recruitin' station. 'Then I'll go 'long wid ye an' see that ye're right fitted up,' I says to him. 'I must go out an' do an hour's work,' he then says. 'When I've finished that I'll be ready to go.' 'Right, me boy,' I says, for I knew that he wanted to go out and tell the other men what he was going to do. "So we goes to the recruitin' station and the corp'ral there runs a tape over John. 'Ye'll do,' he says. 'Ye'll make a fine sodger.' So we went out, me an' him, and I goes wid him to the nearest tobacco shop. 'Now think of what ye're goin' to do,' I says till him. 'It's not an easy job, the job of a sodger. Now think,' I said, 'think, me boy.' He looked at me straight in the face and said, as if he was offended: 'Ye don't think I've done wrong, do ye?' Begorra, there and then, I just--and there were a lot iv people lookin' at us--I just caught him be the hand and squeezed it. 'Ye're a man,' I says, 'an' I'll get ye a pipe an' tobacco.' "And so I did, and would ye misdoubt me when I say that he was as handy puttin' a match to a pipe as I was meself. But it's not easy to understand young cubs." "When did you join up?" asked Snogger, who came into the dug-out at that moment.