eriority
made him a marked man. It was rumoured, too, that he had refused a
commission.

"Of course I go," replied Penrose.

"What, and listen to their pie-jaw?"

"There is precious little pie-jaw, as you call it," was Penrose's
response. "We have jolly good entertainments almost every night, and
some of the fellows who come to talk to us are not half bad, I can tell
you! Besides, I go there to rub up my conversational French."

"Conversational French!" said Tom, only dimly understanding what he
meant. "Dost 'a mean to say that they learn you French there?"

"There's a Frenchman who gives his services free," replied Penrose.
"It's jolly good of him too, for the poor wretch has hardly a sixpence
to his name; still he does it. In his way he's quite a French scholar,
and he has helped me no end."

"Ay, but you learnt French at school," said Tom; "he would have nowt to
do wi' a chap like me."

"Don't be an ass. Why, dozens of fellows go to him every night. A few
weeks ago they didn't know a word of French, and now they are picking
it up like mad. Besides all that, the Y.M.C.A. rooms are open every
night, they have all sorts of games there, lots of newspapers, and they
give you every facility for writing letters and that sort of thing."

"By gum!" said Tom, "I didn't know that."

"That's because you have been making an ass of yourself. While the
other fellows have been improving themselves you have been loafing
around public-houses. Good night," and Penrose left him alone.

Tom felt rather miserable; he was somewhat angered too. He didn't like
the way Penrose had spoken to him. In the old days he had been proud
of his respectability, and before he had made Polly Powell's
acquaintance, and when Alice Lister had shown a preference for him, Tom
was very ambitious. Now he knew he had not only sunk in the social
scale, but he had less self-respect than formerly. "After all," he
argued to himself presently, "I didn't join the Army to go to Sunday
School, I joined to lick the blooming Germans."

Still he could not help recalling the feelings which possessed him on
the night he came out of the great hall at the Mechanics' Institute.
He had felt stirred then; felt indeed as though he had heard the call
of some higher power. Hitherto he had looked upon wearing the King's
uniform as something ignoble; then it had appeared to him almost as a
religious act. The speaker had called upon him to fight against
br