"Thank you, sir," the corporal saluted. "I think I can manage it--at any rate if I don't it won't be for want of trying." "Who are those nice-looking lads I saw with you, Manley?" Major James asked as the captain came into the messroom to lunch. "Those are two buglers in his Majesty's Norfolk Rangers." There was a general laugh. "No, but really, Manley, who are they? I was quite struck with them; good style of boys." "It is a fact, major. Harding will tell you so," and he nodded to the adjutant. "Yes, Manley is saying the thing that's right," the adjutant answered. "The doctor passed them, and I swore them in." "I am sorry for it," the major said. "There were three or four of us standing on the mess-room steps and we all noticed them. They were gentlemen, if I ever saw one, and a hard life they will have of it with the band boys. However, they are not likely to stay there. They have run away from school, of course, and will be claimed. I wonder you enlisted them." "The colonel's orders, major," the adjutant said. "Manley took them to him, I believe, and then brought them to me." "I don't think you need feel anxious about them among the boys, major," Captain Manley said. "I fancy they can hold their own. I found them outside the gate where a row was going on among some of the recruiting sergeants, and one of those boys had just tripped up a sergeant of the 15th and nearly broken his head." There was a general laugh. "They are quite interesting, these prodigies of yours, Manley. How did the boy do it? I should not have thought him strong enough to have thrown a man off his balance." "I asked Summers about it afterwards," Captain Manley said, "the fellow gave one of the boys a box on the ear, and in an instant the boy stooped, caught his foot and pulled it forward and up. The thing was done in a moment, and the sergeant was on his back before he knew what's what." "By Jove," a young ensign said, "I have seen that trick done at Eton." "That is just where the boy said he learnt it," Captain Manley said. "The colonel asked him suddenly, and it slipped out." "If they're Etonians, I ought to know them," the ensign said. "I only left six months ago. What are their names?" "Their name is Scudamore." "By Jove, they were in the same house with me. Uncommonly sharp little fellows, and up to no end of mischief. It was always believed, though no one could prove it, that they were the boys who nearly suffocated the bargee." There was a roar of laughter. "Tell us all about, Carruthers."