um, which were
taken up by the echoes and repeated till they died away in the distance,
in company with volleys of notes in a spirited crash from the brass
instruments far in front, as the band struck up a rattling march, whose
effect was to make breasts swell, heads perk up, and the lads pull
themselves together and march on, many of them beginning to hum the
familiar melody which had brightened many a long, up-country tramp.

"Talk about telly-phoning, Billy; they heered you without."

"Yes, that's your style," cried the first speaker, bursting out with a
very good imitation of Punch in one of his vocal efforts, and
supplementing it with a touch of the terpsichorean, tripping along in
step with a suggestion of a nigger minstrel's jig.

Marching easy does not mean free and easy: and this was too much for one
of the sergeants of the company, a tall, gaunt, particularly bony-faced
fellow, frowning and full of importance, but almost as boyish of aspect
as those who bore no chevrons on their sleeves.

He came up at the double, unnoticed by the dancer, and tried to range up
alongside; but the rocky shelf was for some minutes not wide enough.
Consequently he had time to grow redder in the face and more angry.

At last, though, he was in a position to speak.

"Here, you, sir," he shouted; "drop that. You're not on a cellar flap
now. Recollect where you are."

Private Gedge gave a start, and squinted horribly for the benefit of his
comrades right and left, as he pulled himself together, jerked his rifle
over from one shoulder to the other, and marched on with his body stiff
as a rifle-barrel.

"You're too full of these monkey-tricks, sir; and if there's any more of
them I shall report you."

Private Gedge squinted more horribly than ever, as he marched on now as
stiffly as if being drilled--too stiffly to satisfy the sergeant, who
kept close behind.

"March easy, sir! march easy!" he cried importantly, and the offender
dropped his rigidity, the result being that the sergeant returned to his
place in the rear of the company, while Private Gedge relieved his
feelings in a whisper.

"Yah! Gee up! Gee! Who wouldn't be a sergeant? Bless his heart! I
love him 'most as much as my mother dear--my mother dear--my gee-yentle
mother deear."

He sang the last words, but in a suppressed voice, to the great
amusement of his fellows.

"Oh, I say, I wish I warn't a swaddy," he whispered.

"Why?" asked the lad on his l