m of their lives.
They save up for years, so as to be able to come here for nothing."

"What's the attraction?" asked "A. B.," more amazed than ever.

"Why, don't you see," explained the next door lady, "our back windows
open upon the barrack yard. A girl living in one of these houses is
always close to soldiers. By looking out of window she can always see
soldiers; and sometimes a soldier will nod to her or even call up to her.
They never dream of asking for wages. They'll work eighteen hours a day,
and put up with anything just to be allowed to stop."

"A. B." profited by this information, and engaged the girl who offered
the five pounds premium. She found her a perfect treasure of a servant.
She was invariably willing and respectful, slept on a sofa in the
kitchen, and was always contented with an egg for her dinner.

The truth of this story I cannot vouch for. Myself, I can believe it.
Brown and MacShaughnassy made no attempt to do so, which seemed
unfriendly. Jephson excused himself on the plea of a headache. I admit
there are points in it presenting difficulties to the average intellect.
As I explained at the commencement, it was told to me by Ethelbertha, who
had it from Amenda, who got it from the char-woman, and exaggerations may
have crept into it. The following, however, were incidents that came
under my own personal observation. They afforded a still stronger
example of the influence exercised by Tommy Atkins upon the British
domestic, and I therefore thought it right to relate them.

"The heroine of them," I said, "is our Amenda. Now, you would call her a
tolerably well-behaved, orderly young woman, would you not?"

"She is my ideal of unostentatious respectability," answered
MacShaughnassy.

"That was my opinion also," I replied. "You can, therefore, imagine my
feelings on passing her one evening in the Folkestone High Street with a
Panama hat upon her head (_my_ Panama hat), and a soldier's arm round her
waist. She was one of a mob following the band of the Third Berkshire
Infantry, then in camp at Sandgate. There was an ecstatic, far-away look
in her eyes. She was dancing rather than walking, and with her left hand
she beat time to the music.

"Ethelbertha was with me at the time. We stared after the procession
until it had turned the corner, and then we stared at each other.

"'Oh, it's impossible,' said Ethelbertha to me.

"'But that was my hat,' I said to Ethelbertha.

"The