erhaps a platitudinous corollary.

... "And phwat the Divvle's begone of me ould pal Patsy Flannigan, at
all, at all?" inquired Trooper Phelim O'Shaughnessy, entering the
barrack-room of E Troop of the Queen's Greys, lying at Shorncliffe
Camp. "Divvle a shmell of the baste can I see, and me back from
furlough-leaf for minnuts. Has the schamer done the two-shtep widout
anny flure, as Oi've always foretould? Is ut atin' his vegetables by
the roots he now is in the bone-orchard, and me owing the poor bhoy
foive shillin'? Where is he?"

"In 'orsepittle," laconically replied Trooper Henry Hawker, late of
Whitechapel, without looking up from the jack-boot he was polishing.

"Phwat wid?" anxiously inquired the bereaved Phelim.

"Wot wiv'? Wiv' callin' 'Threes abaht' after one o' the Young
Jocks,"[16] was the literal reply.

"Begob that same must be a good hand wid his fisties--or was it a
shillaleigh?" mused the Irishman.

"'Eld the Helliot belt in Hinjer last year, they say," continued the
Cockney. "_Good?_ Not'arf. I wouldn't go an' hinsult the bloke for the
price of a pot. No. 'Erbert 'Awker would not. (Chuck us yore
button-stick, young 'Enery Bone.) _Good?_ 'E's a 'Oly Terror--and I
don't know as there's a man in the Queen's Greys as could put 'im to
sleep--not unless it's Matthewson," and here Trooper Herbert Hawker
jerked his head in the direction of Trooper Damocles de Warrenne
(_alias_ D. Matthewson) who, seated on his truckle-bed, was engaged in
breathing hard, and rubbing harder, upon a brass helmet from which he
had unscrewed a black horse-hair plume.

Dam, arrayed in hob-nailed boots, turned-up overalls "authorized for
grooming," and a "grey-back" shirt, looked indefinably a gentleman.

Trooper Herbert Hawker, in unlaced gymnasium shoes, "leathers," and a
brown sweater (warranted not to show the dirt), looked quite definably
what he was, a Commercial Road ruffian; and his foreheadless face,
greasy cow-lick "quiff" (or fringe), and truculent expression,
inspired more disgust than confidence in the beholder.

His reference to Dam as the only likely champion of the Heavy Cavalry
against the Hussar was a tribute to the tremendous thrashing he had
received from "Trooper D. Matthewson" when the same had become
necessary after a long course of unresented petty annoyance. Hawker
was that very rare creature, a boaster, who made good, a bully of
great courage and determination, and a loud talker, who was a very
ac