d offend them all."

"Yes," I said; "they're all as hot-headed and peppery as can be."

"Spoiling for a fight," put in Denham.

"Yes; and so full of that queer feeling which makes them think a set is
made against them because they are Irish."

"Exactly," cried my companion; "and it's such a mistake on their part,
because we always like them for their high spirits and love of a bit of
fun."

"They're the wittiest and cleverest fellows in the corps."

"And if I wanted a dozen chaps to back me up in some dangerous business,
I'd sooner depend on them for standing to me to the last than any one I
know."

"Oh! it would be a pity," I said warmly. "I hope the Colonel will think
better of it."

Denham winked at me as we sat in shelter by the light of a
newly-invented lamp, made of a bully-beef tin cut down shallow and with
a couple of dints in the side; it was full of melted fat, across which a
strip out of the leg of an old cotton stocking had been laid so that the
two ends projected an inch beyond the two spout-like dints.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"The chief," said Denham, "good old boy, kicks up a shindy, and swears
he'll do this or that, and then he thinks better of it. I've got off my
wigging."

"How do you know?" I said.

"Met the old boy after I had been having a regular hunt everywhere with
half-a-dozen men, and he nodded to me in quite a friendly way. `Thank
you, Denham,' he said. `Tell your men that they were very smart.'"

"I'm glad of that," I said.

"Same here, dear boy. It's his way, bless him! He likes a red rag to
go at, the old John Bull that he is; but if another begins to flutter
somewhere else, he forgets number one and goes in for number two."

"Yes, I've noticed that," I said. "But it's a great pity that fellow
got away. I believe he has been shamming a bit lately."

"No doubt about it. The nuisance of it is, that the brute will go and
put the Boers up to everything as to our strength, supplies, ammunition,
and goodness knows what else. But, look here, I'm going on now to see
how Sam Wren is."

"Sam Wren?" I cried wonderingly. "What's the matter with him?"

"Matter? Why, he was the sentry Moriarty knocked down."

"Oh, poor fellow! I am sorry," I said, for the private in question was
one of the smartest and best-tempered men in our troop.

"So's everybody," replied Denham. "I say: it was contusion in his case,
not collusion."

"Where is he?" I said.

"I