ago. So obey all orders like a shot. Watch me next time I get one. No disgrace, you know! Ought to be a soldier's pride, and all that. See?"

"Yes—sirr," replies Private Dunshie, with less truculence.

The Captain glances down at the paper before him.

"First time you have come before me. Admonished!"

"Right turn! Quick march!" thunders the Sergeant-Major.

The procession clumps out of the room. The Captain turns to his disciple.

"That's my homely and paternal tap," he observes. "For first offenders only. That chap's all right. Soon find out it's no good fussing about your rights as a true-born British elector in the Army. Sergeant-Major!"

"Sirr?"

"Private McNulty!"

After the usual formalities, enter Private McNulty and escort. Private
McNulty is a small scared-looking man with a dirty face.

"Private McNulty, sirr!" announces the Sergeant-Major to the Company Commander, with the air of a popular lecturer on entomology placing a fresh insect under the microscope.

Captain Blaikie addresses the shivering culprit—

"Private McNulty; charged with destroying Government property. Corporal Mather!"

Corporal Mather clears his throat, and assuming the wooden expression and fish-like gaze common to all public speakers who have learned their oration by heart, begins—

"Sirr, on the night of the sixth inst. I was Orderly Sergeant. Going round the prisoner's room about the hour of nine-thirty I noticed that his three biscuits had been cut and slashed, appariently with a knife or other instrument."

"What did you do?"

"Sirr, I inquired of the men in the room who was it had gone for to do this. Sirr, they said it was the prisoner."

Two witnesses are called. Both, certify, casting grieved and virtuous glances at the prisoner, that this outrage upon the property of His Majesty was the work of Private McNulty.

To the unsophisticated Bobby Little this charge appears rather a frivolous one. If you may not cut or slash a biscuit, what are you to do with it? Swallow it whole?

"Private McNulty?" queries the Captain.

Private McNulty, in a voice which is shrill with righteous indignation, gives the somewhat unexpected answer—

"Sirr, I plead guilty!"

"Guilty—eh? You did it, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

This is what Private McNulty is waiting for.

"The men in that room, sirr," he announces indignantly, "appear tae look on me as a sort of body that can be treated onyways. They go for tae aggravate me. I was sittin' on my bed, with my knife in my hand, cutting a piece bacca and interfering with naebody, when they all commenced tae fling biscuits at me. I was keepin' them off as weel as I could; but havin' a knife in my hand, I'll no deny but what I gave twa three of them a bit cut."

"Is this true?" asks the Captain of the first witness, curtly.

"Yes, sir."

"You saw the men throwing biscuits at the prisoner?"

"Yes, sir."

"He was daen' it himsel'!" proclaims Private McNulty.

"This true?"

"Yes, sir."

The Captain addresses the other witness.

"You doing it too?"

"Yes, sir."

The Captain turns again to the prisoner.

"Why didn't you lodge a complaint?" (The schoolboy code does not obtain in the Army.)

"I did, sir. I tellt"—indicating Corporal Mather with an elbow—"this genelman here."

Corporal Mather cannot help it. He swells perceptibly. But swift puncture awaits him.

"Corporal Mather, why didn't you mention this?"

"I didna think it affected the crime, sir."

"Not your business to think. Only to make a straightforward charge. Be very careful in future. You other two"—the witnesses come guiltily to attention—"I shall talk to your platoon sergeant about you. Not going to have Government property knocked about!"

Bobby Little's eyebrows, willy-nilly, have been steadily rising during the last five minutes. He knows the meaning of red tape now!

Then comes sentence.

"Private McNulty, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of destroying Government property, so you go before the Commanding Officer. Don't suppose you'll be punished, beyond paying for the damage."

"Right turn! Quick march!" chants the Sergeant-Major.

The downtrodden McNulty disappears, with his traducers. But Bobby
Little's eyebrows have not been altogether thrown away upon his
Company Commander.

"Got the biscuits here, Sergeant-Major?"

"Yes, sirr."

"Show them."

The Sergeant-Major dives into a pile of brown blankets, and presently extracts three small brown mattresses, each two feet square. These appear to have been stabbed in several places with a knife.

Captain Blaikie's eyes twinkle, and he chuckles to his now scarlet-faced junior—

"More biscuits in heaven and earth than ever came out of Huntley and
Palmer's, my son! Private Robb!"

Presently Private Robb stands at the table. He is a fresh-faced, well-set-up youth, with a slightly receding chin and a most dejected manner.

"Private Robb," reads the Captain. "While on active service, drunk and singing in Wellington Street about nine p.m. on Saturday, the sixth. Sergeant Garrett!"

The proceedings follow their usual course, except that in this case some of the evidence is "documentary"—put in in the form of a report from the sergeant of the Military Police who escorted the melodious Robb home to bed.

The Captain addresses the prisoner.

"Private Robb, this is the second time. Sorry—very sorry. In all other ways you are doing well. Very keen and promising soldier. Why is it—eh?"

The contrite Robb hangs his head. His judge continues—

"I'll tell you. You haven't found out yet how much you can hold. That it?"

The prisoner nods assent.

"Well—find out! See? It's one of the first things a young man ought to learn. Very valuable piece of information. I know myself, so I'm safe. Want you to do the same. Every man has a different limit. What did you have on Saturday?"

Private Robb reflects.

"Five pints, sirr," he announces.

"Well, next time try three, and then you won't go serenading policemen. As it is, you will have to go before the Commanding Officer and get punished. Want to go to the front, don't you?"

"Yes, sirr." Private Robb's dismal features flush.

"Well, mind this. We all want to go, but we can't go till every man in the battalion is efficient. You want to be the man who kept the rest from going to the front—eh?"

"No, sirr, I do not."

"All right, then. Next Saturday night say to yourself: 'Another pint, and I keep the Battalion back!' If you do that, you'll come back to barracks sober, like a decent chap. That'll do. Don't salute with your cap off. Next man, Sergeant-Major!"

"Good boy, that," remarks the Captain to Bobby Little, as the contrite Robb is removed. "Keen as mustard. But his high-water mark for beer is