mayonnaise that defeated us.'

'Yes, he wasn't taking anything except pure revenge,' said Eames.

'He said he'd make an example of the regiment, and he was particularly
glad that he'd landed our Colonel. He told us so. Old Dhurrah-bags don't
sympathise with Wontner's tactical lectures. He says Wontner ought to
learn manners first, but we thought--' Trivett turned to Eames, who was
less a son of the house than himself, Eames's father being still alive.

'Then,' Eames went on, 'he became rather noisome, and we thought we
might as well impound the correspondence'--he wrinkled his swelled left
eye--'and after that, we got him to take a seat in my car.'

'He was in a sack, you know,' Trivett explained. 'He wouldn't go any
other way. But we didn't hurt him.'

'Oh no! His head's sticking out quite clear, and'--Eames rushed the
fence--'we've put him in your garage--er _pendente lite_.'

'My garage!' Infant's voice nearly broke with horror.

'Well, father always told me if I was in trouble, Uncle George--'

Bobby's sentence died away as The Infant collapsed on a divan and said
no more than, 'Your commissions!' There was a long, long silence.

'What price your latter-day lime-juice subaltern?' I whispered to
Stalky behind my hand. His nostrils expanded, and he drummed on the edge
of the Japanese jar with his knuckles.

'Confound your father, Bobby!' The Infant groaned. 'Raggin's a criminal
offence these days. It isn't as if--'

'Come on,' said Stalky. 'That was my old Line battalion in Egypt. They
nearly slung old Dhurrah-bags and me out of the Service in '85 for
ragging.' He descended the stairs and The Infant rolled appealing
eyes at him.

'I heard what you youngsters have confessed,' he began; and in his
orderly-room voice, which is almost as musical as his singing one, he
tongue-lashed those lads in such sort as was a privilege and a
revelation to listen to. Till then they had known him almost as a
relative--we were all brevet, deputy, or acting uncles to The Infant's
friends' brood--a sympathetic elder brother, sound on finance. They had
never met Colonel A.L. Corkran in the Chair of Justice. And while he
flayed and rent and blistered, and wiped the floor with them, and while
they looked for hiding-places and found none on that floor, I remembered
(1) the up-ending of 'Dolly' Macshane at Dalhousie, which came
perilously near a court-martial on Second-Lieutenant Corkran; (2) the
burning of Captain Parmilee's mosq