eful, and the mode of living repulsive. But it
contents me. The secret of happiness lies in adapting one's self to
conditions. I adapt myself wherever I happen to be. And now, may I,
without impertinent curiosity, again ask what you meant when you said
you had come down to bed-rock?"

All of Doggie's rage and shame flared up at the question.

"I've been thrown out of the army!" he cried. "I'm here in
hiding--hiding from my family and the decent folk I'm ashamed to meet!"

"Tell me all about it, laddie," urged Phineas, gently.

Then Doggie broke down, and with a gush of unminded tears found
expression for his stony despair. His story took a long time in the
telling, and Phineas interjected a sympathetic "Ay, ay," from time to
time.

"And now," cried Doggie, his young face distorted and reddened, his
sleek hair ruffled, and his hands appealingly outstretched, "what am I
going to do?"

"You've got to go back home," said Phineas. "You've got to whip up all
the moral courage in you and go back to Durdlebury."

"I won't," said Doggie, "I can't. I'd sooner die than go back there
disgraced. I'd sooner enlist as a private soldier."

"Enlist?" repeated Phineas, and he drew himself up straight and gaunt.
"Well, why not?"

"Enlist?" echoed Doggie, in a dull tone. "As a Tommy?"

"As a Tommy," replied Phineas.

"Enlist!" murmured Doggie. He thought of the alternatives--flight, which
was craven; home, which he could not bear. Doggie rose from his chair
with a new light in his eyes. He had come to the supreme moment of his
life; he had made his great resolution. Yes, he would enlist as a
private soldier in the British army.

III

A year later Doggie Trevor returned to Durdlebury. He had been laid up
in hospital with a wounded leg, the result of fighting the German
snipers in front of the first line trenches, and he was now on his way
back to France. Durdlebury had not changed in the interval; it was
Marmaduke Trevor that had changed. He measured about ten inches more
around the chest than the year before, and his hands were red and
calloused from hard work. He was as straight as an Indian now, and in
his rough khaki uniform of a British private he looked every bit a
man--yes, and more than that, a veteran soldier. For Doggie had passed
through battle after battle, gas attacks, mine explosions, and months of
dreary duty in water-filled trenches, where only brave and tough men
could endure. He had been tried in the fur