re wont to deposit small sums in this, on
which they might fall back in their hours of need.

"Not much, I fear," the other said, shaking his head.

"Well, now, we want something to pull us together on a dull day like
this. Suppose we send out for a bottle of sparkling, eh?"

"Not enough money," the other objected.

"Well, well, let's have something cheaper. Beaune, now; Beaune's a good
comforting sort of drink. What d'ye say to splitting a bottle of
Beaune, and paying for it from the common purse?"

"Not enough money," the other persisted doggedly.

"Well, claret be it," sighed the major. "Maybe it's better in this sort
of weather. Let us send Susan out for a bottle of claret?"

The German took down the little leather bag and turned it upside down.
A threepenny-piece and a penny rolled out. "Dat's all," he said.
"Not enough for claret."

"But there is for beer," cried the major radiantly. "Bedad, it's just
the time for a quart of fourpinny. I remimber ould Gilder, when he was
our chief in India, used to say that a man who got beyond enjoying beer
and a clay pipe at a pinch was either an ass or a coxcomb. He smoked a
clay at the mess table himself. Draper, who commanded the division,
told him it was unsoldier-like. 'Unsoldier-like be demned,' he said.
Ged, they nearly court-martialled the ould man for it. He got the V.C.
at the Quarries, and was killed at the Redan."

A slatternly, slipshod girl answered the bell, and having received her
orders and the united available funds of the two comrades, speedily
returned with a brace of frothing pint pots. The major ruminated
silently over his cigarette for some time, on some unpleasant subject,
apparently, for his face was stem and his brows knitted. At last he
broke out with an oath.

"Be George! Baumser, I can't stand that young fellow Girdlestone.
I'll have to chuck him up. He's such a cold-blooded, flinty-hearted,
calculating sort of a chap, that--" The remainder of the major's
sentence was lost in the beer flagon.

"What for did you make him your friend, then?"

"Well," the old soldier confessed, "it seemed to me that if he wanted
to fool his money away at cards or any other divilment, Tobias
Clutterbuck might as well have the handling of it as any one else.
Bedad, he's as cunning as a basketful of monkeys. He plays a safe game
for low stakes, and never throws away a chance. Demned if I don't think
I've been a loser in pocket by knowing him