se 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.

[Illustration: "A SOLDIER'S ARM ROUND THE WAIST."]

The truth of this story I cannot vouch for. Myself, I can believe it.
Brown and MacShaugnassy 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 charwoman, 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 also to
the boys.

"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
MacShaugnassy.

"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, composed of all the unoccupied riff-raff of
Folkestone, who were 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."

"I should say you were suffering from a mild attack of D.T. when you saw
all that," said MacShaugnassy.

"So I might have thought myself," I said; "but Ethelbertha was with me
at the time, and she saw it too. 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 moment we r