hour or two, Master Harry," said Mrs.
O'Halloran, "I'll have a bit of dinner ready for you, and I wouldn't say
but there might be something for the sergeant and his men. It's what her
ladyship is always saying that we ought to do the best we can for the
lads that's fighting for us against the Germans--so long as they behave
themselves. But mind this now, sergeant, if you do look in in the course
of the evening there must be no carrying on with the girls. The Lord
knows they're giddy enough without you upsetting them worse."

That night, after dark, three young Sinn Feiners climbed the wall at the
end of Lady Devereux' back yard and dropped into a narrow lane beyond
it. A fortnight later Mrs. O'Halloran received a large parcel containing
three suits of clothes, the property of Second Lieutenant Devereux, left
by him in his aunt's house when he first put on his uniform. They were
carefully brushed and folded, in no way the worse for having been worn
by strangers for one night.

In the bottom of Mrs. O'Halloran's trunk there are three rebel uniforms.
And on the top of the cupboard in her room are three rifles, made in
Germany.

XIV ~~ CIVILIZED WAR

"This," said Captain Power, "is an utterly rotten war."

The rain was dripping through the roof of the shed which had been
allotted to Power as a billet The mud outside was more than ankle deep.
The damp inside was chilly and penetrating. Ned Waterhouse, a Second
Lieutenant, the only other occupant of the shed, looked up from an old
newspaper which he was trying to read.

"All wars are rotten," he said.

"Not at all," said Power; "a properly conducted war, run in a decent way
by civilized men is quite agreeable, rather fun, in fact. Now the last
in which I was mixed up was rather fun."

Waterhouse eyed Power suspiciously. He suspected that he was being made
the victim of some kind of joke. Waterhouse was an Englishman and it
was not of his own desire that he was an officer in the Hibernian light
Infantry. He felt himself out of place among Irishmen whom he never
quite understood. He was particularly distrustful of Captain Power.
Power was an expert in the art of "pulling the legs" of innocent people.
Waterhouse had several times found himself looking like a fool without
knowing exactly why.

"What I call a civilized war," said Power, "is waged in fine weather for
one thing, and men have a chance of keeping clean. The combatants show
some regard for the other s