niform and stood at
ease in his shirt and trousers; with his eloquence no way impeded by the
brule-gueule that was always between his teeth. "Over there in England,
you know, sir, pipe-clay is the deuce-and-all; you're always got to have
the stock on, and look as stiff as a stake, or it's all up with you;
you're that tormented about little things that you get riled and kick
the traces before the great 'uns come to try you. There's a lot of lads
would be game as game could be in battle--aye, and good lads to boot,
doing their duty right as a trivet when it came to anything like
war--that are clean drove out of the service in time o' peace,
along with all them petty persecutions that worry a man's skin like
mosquito-bites. Now here they know that, and Lord! what soldiers they
do make through knowing of it! It's tight enough and stern enough in
big things; martial law sharp enough, and obedience to the letter all
through the campaigning; but that don't grate on a fellow; if he's worth
his salt he's sure to understand that he must move like clockwork in a
fight, and that he's to go to hell at double-quick-march, and mute as a
mouse, if his officers see fit to send him. There ain't better stuff to
make soldiers out of nowhere than Englishmen, God bless 'em! But they're
badgered, they're horribly badgered; and that's why the service don't
take over there, let alone the way the country grudge 'em every bit of
pay. In England you go in the ranks--well, they all just tell you you're
a blackguard, and there's the lash, and you'd better behave yourself or
you'll get it hot and hot; they take for granted you're a bad lot or
you wouldn't be there, and in course you're riled and go to the bad
according, seeing that it's what's expected of you. Here, contrariwise,
you come in the ranks and get a welcome, and feel that it just rests
with yourself whether you won't be a fine fellow or not; and just along
of feeling that you're pricked to show the best metal you're made on,
and not to let nobody else beat you out of the race, like. Ah! it makes
a wonderful difference to a fellow--a wonderful difference--whether the
service he's come into look at him as a scamp that never will be nothing
but a scamp, or as a rascal that's maybe got in him, all rascal though
he is, the pluck to turn into a hero. And that's just the difference,
sir, that France has found out, and England hasn't--God bless her, all
the same!"

With which the soldier whom Eng