s regiment, and his battalion. He had heard often enough that
the Guards Brigades were the finest brigades in the Army, that this
particular brigade was the best of all the Guards, that his battalion
was the best of the Brigade. Hitherto he had rather deprecated these
remarks as savoring of pride and self-conceit, but now he began to
believe that they must be true; and so believing, if he had but known
it, he had taken another long step on the way to becoming the perfect
soldier, who firmly believes his regiment the finest in the world and
is ready to die in proof of the belief.

"Dusty Miller," the next file on his left, who was eating bread and
cheese, spoke to him.

"Why don't you eat some grab, Toffee?" he mumbled cheerfully, with his
mouth full. "In a game like this you never know when you'll get the
next chance of a bite."

"Don't feel particularly hungry," answered Toffee with an attempt to
appear as off-handed and casual and at ease as his questioner. "So I
think I'd better save my ration until I'm hungry."

Dusty Miller sliced off a wedge of bread with the knife edge against
his thumb, popped it in his mouth, and followed it with a corner of
cheese.

"A-ah!" he said profoundly, and still munching; "there's no sense in
saving rations when you're going into action. I'd a chum once that
always did that; said he got more satisfaction out of a meal when the
job was over and he was real hungry, and had a chance to eat in
comfort--more or less comfort. And one day we was for it he saved a tin
o' sardines and a big chunk of cake and a bottle of pickled onions that
had just come to him from home the day before; said he was looking
forward to a good feed that night after the show was over. And--and he
was killed that day!"

Dusty Miller halted there with the inborn artistry that left his climax
to speak for itself.

"Hard luck!" said Toffee sympathetically. "So his feed was wasted!"

"Not to say wasted exactly," said Dusty, resuming bread and cheese.
"Because I remembers to this day how good them onions was. Still it was
wasted, far as he was concerned--and he was particular fond o' pickled
onions."

But even the prospect of wasting his rations did nothing to induce
Toffee to eat a meal. The man on Toffee's right was crouched back on
the firing-step apparently asleep or near it. Dusty Miller had turned
and opened a low-toned conversation with the next man, the frequent
repetition of "I says" and "she says" af