our thousand a
year to deduct sixpence a week to send to her! I thought I should have
died of laughing."

The first soldier remained impassive. "And what happened?" he asked at
last.

"What happened?"

"Yes, what was done about it? The sixpence, I mean. Did he agree to send
it?"

The second soldier pulled himself together. "Oh, I don't know," he said
shortly. "That's not the point."

"After all," the other continued, "the regulations say that married men
have to deduct sixpence for their wives, don't they?"

"Yes, of course," the other replied. "But this man, I tell you, already
gave her four thousand a year."

"That doesn't really touch it," said the first soldier. "The principle's
the same. Now----"

But I could stand the humiliation of the other honest fellow, so
brimming with anecdote and cheerfulness, no longer; and I came to his
rescue with my cigarette case. For I have had misfires myself.

A Letter

(_From Captain Claude Seaforth to a novelist friend_)

MY DEAR MAN,--You asked me to tell you if anything very remarkable came
my way. I think I have a story for you at last. If I could only write I
would make something of it myself, but not being of Kitchener's Army I
can't.

The other day, while I was clearing up papers and accounts, and all over
ink, as I always get, the Sergeant came to me, looking very rum. "Two
young fellows want to see you," he said.

Of course I said I was too busy and that he must deal with them.

"I think you'd rather see them yourself," he said, with another odd
look.

"What do they want?" I asked.

"They want to enlist," he said; "but they don't want to see the
doctor."

We've had some of these before--consumptives of the bull-dog breed, you
know. Full of pluck but no mortal use; knocked out by the first route
march.

"Why don't you tell them that they must see the doctor and have done
with it?" I asked the Sergeant.

Again he smiled queerly. "I made sure you'd rather do it yourself," he
said. "Shall I send them in?"

So I wished them farther and said "Yes"; and in they came.

They were the prettiest boys you ever saw in your life--too pretty. One
had red hair and the other black, and they were dressed like navvies.
They held their caps in their hands.

"What's this rubbish about not seeing a doctor?" I asked. You know my
brutal way.

"We thought perhaps it could be dispensed with," Red Hair said, drawing
nearer to Black Hair.

"Of course it can