rlds."

CHAPTER SIX.

WAR WITH RUSSIA.

The summer months flew by in the pleasant surroundings of beautiful
Windsor. Guard duties alternating with drills, and odd hours spent in
the office of the regimental orderly-room, kept Phil pleasantly
occupied, and when off duty he and Tony had always plenty of ways of
amusing themselves, so that the latter days of September found them loth
to leave the garrison and march to London. But orders had come for the
battalion to go to Wellington Barracks, and in due course they found
themselves once more installed in their old quarters, facing the park
across the celebrated Bird-cage Walk.

"We've had a real good time down there," remarked Tony, some two months
after their arrival, jerking his thumb in the direction of Windsor, "and
it'll be long before we strike against such another.

"What's to be done here? Nothing--simply nothing! It's drill and go on
guard nigh every day, and when you're free, kick yer heels in the
square, or go out walking. I'm getting tired of it already."

"Oh, come, Tony, it isn't quite so bad as that!" laughed Phil. "We're
no harder worked here than we were during the summer, and in our free
time we can find heaps to do if we only set about it. They say that
thousands of Londoners know far less about their own surroundings than
do occasional visitors. Now I propose we get some sort of a guide, and
every day we are able, go off to see some gallery or museum. It will
cost us little or nothing, and will be good fun. In any case it would
take weeks to exhaust all the sights, and before that, if all one hears
is true, we are likely to be setting our faces south for some other
country."

"Oh, you mean we'll be off fighting, do you, Phil? Well, I ain't so
jolly certain. Seems to me that England ain't keen on a row just now.
It takes a scholar to know anything about it, but I hears that the Queen
and her government want peace, and I suppose what England wants she's
bound to have. Leastways that's how I reckon it, for we'd whop the
heads off any nation what tried to interfere."

"Ha, ha! You've rather a big idea of England's power," laughed Phil;
"but there's a good deal of truth in it, I expect. I must get to know
about this row, and meanwhile we'll do as I said, if you're agreeable."

"Yes, it'll suit me well, young un," answered Tony, who was fond of
addressing his friend in that way. "I don't drink, and I ain't never in
trouble nowad