rest and no worries,
I know. Good-morning."

At ten minutes to eleven Cockerell found the Quartermaster-Sergeant
and party, wiping their mustaches and visibly refreshed, at the exact
spot where he had left them; and the hunt for billets began.

"A" Company were easily provided for, a derelict tobacco factory being
encountered at the head of the first street. Lieutenant Cockerell
accordingly detached a sergeant and a corporal from his train, and
passed on. The wants of "B" Company were supplied by commandeering
a block of four dilapidated houses farther down the street--all in
comparatively good repair except the end house, whose roof had been
disarranged by a shell during the open fighting in the early days of
the war.

This exhausted the possibilities of the first street, and the party
debouched into the second, which was long and straggling, and composed
entirely of small houses.

"Now for a bit of the retail business!" said Master Cockerell
resignedly. "Sergeant M'Nab, what is the strength of 'C' Company?"

"One hunner and thairty-fower other ranks, sirr," announced Sergeant
M'Nab, consulting a much-thumbed roll-book.

"We shall have to put them in twos and threes all down the street,"
said Cockerell. "Come on; the longer we look at it the less we shall
like it. Interpreter!"

The forlorn little man, already described, trotted up, and saluted
with open hand, French fashion. His name was Baptiste Bombominet ("or
words to that effect," as the Adjutant put it), and may have been so
inscribed upon the regimental roll; but throughout the rank and file
Baptiste was affectionately known by the generic title of "Alphonso."
The previous seven years had been spent by him in the congenial and
blameless atmosphere of a Ladies' Tailor's in the west end of London,
where he enjoyed the status and emoluments of chief cutter. Now,
called back to his native land by the voice of patriotic obligation,
he found himself selected, by virtue of a residence of seven years in
England, to act as official interpreter between a Scottish Regiment
which could not speak English, and Flemish peasants who could not
speak French. No wonder that his pathetic brown eyes always appeared
full of tears. However, he followed Cockerell down the street, and
meekly embarked upon a contest with the lady Inhabitants thereof, in
which he was hopelessly outmatched from the start.

At the first door a dame of massive proportions, but keen business
instin