when I get to be a colonel, my aspirations will be
satisfied."

"I don't know that I should care even about being a colonel,
Hallett. Long before I get to that rank, I am sure that I should
have had quite enough of fighting to last for a lifetime, and would
be quite content to settle down in some little place at home."

"And marry, of course. A fellow like you would be sure to be able
to pick up a wife with money. My thoughts don't incline that way. I
look forward to the Rag as the conclusion of my career. There you
meet fellows you know, lie against each other about past campaigns,
eat capital dinners, and have your rub of whist, regularly, of an
evening."

"But, my dear Hallett, think how you would fatten out under such a
regime!"

"Oh, hang the fat, Bullen; it would not matter one way or another,
when you haven't got to do yourself up in uniform, and make
tremendous marches, and so on. I should not want to walk, at all; I
should have chambers somewhere close to the club, and could always
charter a hansom, when I wanted to go anywhere. Besides, fat is
eminently respectable, in an elderly man."

Lisle laughed merrily.

"My dear Hallett, it is useless to look forward so far into the
future. Let us content ourselves with the evils of today. In spite
of your grumbling, you know that you like the life and, if the
bullets do but spare you, I have no doubt that you will be just as
energetic a soldier as you have shown yourself in this campaign;
although I must admit that you have sometimes taken it out in
grumbling."

"Well, it is very difficult to be energetic in this country. I
think I could be enthusiastic, in anything like a decent climate,
but this takes all the spirit out of one.

"I think I could have struggled over the snow in the Tirah, as you
did. I can conceive myself wearing the D.S.O. in European war. But
how can a man keep his pecker up when he is wet through all day,
continually fording rivers, and exposed all the time to a pelting
rain and, worse than all, seeing his friends going down one after
another with this beastly fever, and feeling sure that his own turn
will come next?

"I should not mind so much if we always had a dry hut to sleep in,
but as often as not we have to sleep on the drenched ground in the
open and, consequently, get up in the morning more tired than when
we lie down. I have no doubt that, after all this is over, I shall
become a cripple from rheumatism, or be laid up with