spurred and dust-covered boots. "A gentleman's a gentleman, let
alone what straits he fall into."

"But ceases to be one as soon as he takes a service he cannot
requite, or claims a superiority he does not possess. We have been
fellow-soldiers for twelve years--"

"So we have, sir; but we are what we always was, and always will be--one
a gentleman, the other a scamp. If you think so be as I've done a good
thing, side by side with you, now and then in the fighting, give me my
own way and let me wait on you when I can. I can't do much on it when
those other fellow's eyes is on us; but here I can and I will--begging
your pardon--so there's an end of it. One may speak plain in this place
with nothing but them Arabs about; and all the army know well enough,
sir, that if it weren't for that black devil, Chateauroy, you'd have had
your officer's commission, and your troop too, long before now--"

"Oh, no! There are scores of men in the ranks merit promotion better
far than I do. And--leave the Colonel's name alone. He is our chief,
whatever else he be."

The words were calm and careless, but they carried a weight with them
that was not to be disputed. "Crache-au-nez-d'la-Mort" hung his head
a little and went on unharnessing his Corporal in silence, contenting
himself with muttering in his throat that it was true for all that, and
the whole regiment knew it.

"You are happy enough in Algeria?" asked the one he served, as he
stretched himself on the skins and carpets, and drank down a sherbet
that his self-attached attendant had made with a skill learned from a
pretty cantiniere, who had given him the lesson in return for a slashing
blow with which he had struck down two "Riz-pain-sels," who, as the best
paid men in the army, had tried to cheat her in the price of her Cognac.

"I, sir? Never was so happy in my life, sir. I'd be discontented indeed
if I wasn't. Always some spicy bit of fighting. If there aren't a
fantasia, as they call it, in the field, there's always somebody to pot
in a small way; and, if you're lying by in barracks, there's always a
scrimmage hot as pepper to be got up with fellows that love the row just
as well as you do. It's life, that's where it is; it ain't rusting."

"Then you prefer the French service?"

"Right and away, sir. You see this is how it is," and the redoubtable,
yellow-haired "Crache-au-nez-d'la-Mort" paused in the vigorous cleansing
and brushing he was bestowing on his Corporal's u