The O.O. came on the scene, inspected them with a swelling of pride tightening his tunic, found a few faults as a matter of principle, and ordered them away. The R.S.M. escorted them to the road, dismissed them with his blessing, adjuring them to be good little boys generally, and pay his respects to a publican near the Elephant and Castle if they passed that way. At 2 p.m. they entrained at the railhead along with carolling parties from the thousand-and-one units that go to make the B.E.F. At 3 a.m. they detrained in the dim-lit vault of Victoria. As they tramped out of the gates a little man, wearing square clothes and an accent that twanged like a banjo, bored into the crowd. He let some squads of mud-caked line infantry go by unmolested, threw but a cursory glance over a batch of rain-sodden gunners, then his bright eye caught the brighter buttons of the Fifty-thirds and he swooped upon them, thrusting pasteboards into every hand. The sixteenth file paused with his chum under a lamp and read his card. It ran as follows: OUR HEROES' SUPPLY DEPT. Look the part and have your war-yarns believed at home. Put yourselves in our hands and then watch the girls gather round. LIST OF CHARGES Mud-spray (patent mud guaranteed to stick for five days) 1s. Bullet-holes (punched in cap or tunic) 3d. each. Blood-stains (indelible) 6d. Prayer-book (with embedded bullet) 2s. 6. We have also a large stock of souvenirs--shell fragments, bullets, German caps, helmets, etc., at moderate charges. Call and see us right now. Depot just round the block. The sixteenth file looked at his chum, fingering his card uneasily. "Well, Bob, what d'you say? My lassie is won'erful 'ard to convince." "I'm with you," said his friend. "Mother is a fair terror too." They tramped after the little man. A quarter of an hour later they might have been seen tramping back down Victoria Street looking like nothing on earth. XVII THE PINCH OF WAR I came across him on the rim of the bog. He stood before a whitewashed cabin glaring fiercely over the brown world. A coal-black dudeen hung empty and bottom up from his puckered mouth, a rumpled frieze cap was perilously balanced atop of a fringe of white hair. His full figure, upholstered in a worn velvet waistcoat, was thrust well forward as if daring Fate to hit it another blow. At the moment he was acting as a scratching-post to a large white billy-goat, which chafed itself luxuriously to and fro against his straddled legs. At the sound of my horse's hoofs he turned his head. At the sight of my uniform his eyes brightened, he withdrew a smutty hand from a corduroy pocket and made a travesty of a salute towards his cap, which almost lost its balance. "Hey! Good day to ye, Captain!" (I am a second lieutenant, but in Ireland every lance-corporal has visionary batons on his shoulder-straps.)