"I did not have any meat, but I was given a dish of pudding." "Did you eat it?" I asked him. "I had no chance to do so," he answered. "Why not?" I queried. He turned his head slowly and looked first at the big Highlander and then at the equally big Munsterite, and shook his head as he replied: "I don’t know." There was some mystery here, and not such a deep one that it couldn’t be unravelled. I asked the Munsterite: "Did you eat this man’s pudding?" "No, sir," he answered readily, but with a queer smile. The Highlander also answered in the negative. There was still a mystery. "Do you _know_ this German?" I asked the man from Munster and whose bed was nearest. "Do I know him, sir!" he replied, with a significant look directed at his enemy. "I’ve seen that swine several times. He’s a sniper, and used to go about with another tall swine who wore glasses. We never could kill the blighter, but he picked off three of our officers and wounded a fourth. Do I know him, sir?—my eye!" Under the circumstances I couldn’t reproach him. I felt morally certain he had stolen the German’s pudding, as he could easily have reached it from his bed. I didn’t care to probe the matter further, but warned him that such a breach of discipline must not occur again. After reprimanding the orderly also for his negligence—more from a sense of duty than desire, I admit—I ordered that some food be brought up at once, and saw that it reached its destination. We could not have punished the German worse than to leave him in that room. One could easily understand why he pretended not to understand English, for I am sure the remarks which passed across his bed in the days he was there made his ears tingle and his miserable flesh creep. After I had retired that night, Tim came up as usual to see that I was comfortable. Sometimes, when I was in the humour, I told him a story; not so much with the idea of enlightening him as to hear his comments as I proceeded and from which I gained much amusement. "Did you ever hear of the mammoth whose carcase they found in Siberia, Tim?" I asked him. "Wot’s a mammoth, Maje?" he queried, as he seated himself upon my box and, crossing his legs, prepared to listen. "A mammoth, Tim," I replied, "is an extinct animal, similar to the elephant, but which grew to tremendous size." "How big?" he enquired tentatively—his head on one side as usual. "Oh, taller than this house, Tim; often much taller. His teeth were nearly as big as a hat box, and his leg bones almost as big around as your waist." "Go on—go on, I’m a-listenin’," he growled dubiously. "Well, this mammoth had tumbled over a cliff in the mountains of Siberia, thousands of years ago, and falling upon a glacier was frozen solidly in the ice, and, as it never melted, his body didn’t decay. A few years ago they discovered it, and dug it out practically intact." Tim’s eyes were wide, and his mouth had fallen open during this description.