so fiercely that
he shot his glass out of his eye and replaced it angrily.

"Look here, Graham, you and I are going to quarrel."

"What about, sir?"

"Your bad habit of depreciating our lads."

"Yes," said the Doctor, nodding his head sharply. "You do, Major, and
it isn't good form to cry bad fish."

"But it's true," said the Major sharply. "The War Office ought to be
ashamed of itself for sending such a regiment of boys upon so arduous a
task."

"The boys are right enough," said the Colonel. "What do you say,
Bracy?"

"I say of course they are, sir."

"Yes, because you're a boy yourself," said the Major in a tone which
made the young man flush.

"I wish I had some more boys like you, Bracy, my lad," said the Colonel
warmly. "Graham's a bit touched in the liver with the change from warm
weather to cold. He doesn't mean what he says--eh, Morton?"

"That's right, Colonel," said the Doctor. "I have my eye upon him.
He'll be asking for an interview with me to-morrow, _re_, as the lawyers
say, B.P. and B.D."

"Hang your B.P.s and B.D.s!" said the Major hotly. "I mean what I say,
Colonel. These boys ought to have had three or four years in England
before they were sent out here."

"But they are sent up into the hills here where the climate is glorious,
sir," cried the Doctor, "and I'll answer for it that in a year's time
they will have put on muscle in a wonderful way, while in a couple of
years you'll be proud of them."

"I'm proud of the lads now," said the Colonel quietly.

"I'm not," said the Major. "I feel like old Jack Falstaff sometimes,
ready to say, `If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I'm a soused gurnet.'
They're boys, and nothing else."

"Nonsense," said the Colonel good-humouredly. "I've seen some service,
and I never had men under me who marched better or more cheerfully than
these lads have to-day."

"And not one fell out or came to me with sore feet," said the Doctor
stoutly. "Boys? Well, hang it all! they're not such boys as there were
in the old 34th."

"What do you mean?" said the Major, shooting his eyeglass again.

"In the Peninsular War, sir," said the Doctor; "a regiment of boys,
whose ages were from fourteen to sixteen, and they behaved splendidly."

"That's right," said the Colonel, nodding his head.

"Oh yes," cried the Major superciliously; "but they had only the French
to fight against. Any English boy could thrash a Frenchman."

"Don't despise the French, G