"And you're not going on any blethering idiot wild-goose chases after wives and such-like truck again, are you?" "No, Cap'en," said Chipmunk. This was in the stable-yard, after Chipmunk had shaken some of the dust out of his hair and clothes and had eaten and drunk voraciously. He was now sitting on an upturned bucket and smoking his clay pipe with an air of solid content. Oliver, lean and supple, his hands in his pockets, looked humorously down upon him. "And you've got to stick to me for the future, like a roseate leech." "Yes, Cap'en." "You're going to ride a horse." "A wot?" roared Chipmunk. "A thing on four legs, that kicks like hell." "Wotever for? I ain't never ridden no 'osses." "You're going to learn, you unmilitary-looking, worm-eaten scab. You've got to be a ruddy soldier." "Gorblime!" said Chipmunk, "that's the first I 'eard of it. A 'oss soldier? You're not kiddin', are you, Cap'en?" "Certainly not." "Gorblime! Who would ha' thought it?" Then he spat lustily and sucked at his pipe. "You've nothing to say against it, have you?" "No, Cap'en." "All right. And look here, when we're in the army you must chuck calling me Cap'en." "What shall I have to call yer? Gineral?" Chipmunk asked simply. "Mate, Bill, Joe--any old name." "Ker-ist!" said Chipmunk. "Do you know why we're going to enlist?" "Can't say as 'ow I does, Cap'en." "You chuckle-headed swab! Don't you know we're at war?" "I did 'ear some talk about it in a pub one night," Chipmunk admitted. "'Oo are we fighting? Dutchmen or Dagoes?" "Dutchmen." Chipmunk spat in his horny hands, rubbed them together and smiled. As each individual hair on his face seemed to enter into the smile, the result was sinister. "Do you remember that Dutchman at Samoa, Cap'en?" Oliver smiled back. He remembered the hulking, truculent German merchant whom Chipmunk, having half strangled, threw into the sea. He also remembered the amount of accomplished lying he had to practise in order to save Chipmunk from the clutches of the law and get away with the schooner. "We leave here to-morrow," said Oliver. "In the meanwhile you'll have to shave your ugly face." For the first time Chipmunk was really staggered. He gaped at Oliver's retiring figure. Even his limited and time-worn vocabulary failed him. The desperate meaning of the war has flashed suddenly on millions of men in millions of different ways. This is the way in which it flashed on Chipmunk. He sat on his bucket pondering over the awfulness of it and sucking his pipe long after it had been smoked out. The Dean's car drove into the yard and the chauffeur, stripping off his coat, prepared to clean it down. "Say, guv'nor," said Chipmunk hoarsely, "what do you think of this 'ere war?" "Same as most people," replied the chauffeur tersely. He shared in the general disapproval of Chipmunk.