that
objurgatory term, and I am going to place it beneath my pillow before
I go out to-night. If it is there when I come in I'll destroy it
unopened. 'Nuff said,' as the lady remarked when she put the mop in
her husband's mouth. Origin of the phrase 'don't chew the mop,' I
should think," and he babbled on, having let his unfortunate friends
know that for one of them he had a letter which might be received by
the addressed without the least loss of his anonymity.

Dam's heart beat hard and seemed to swell to bursting. He felt
suffocated.

"Quaint superscription," he managed to observe. "How did you come by
it?" and then wished he had not spoken.... Who but the recipient could
be interested in its method of delivery? If anyone suspected him of
being "Dam" would they not at once connect him with the notorious
Damocles de Warrenne, ex-Sandhurst cadet, proclaimed coward and
wretched neurotic decadent before the pained, disgusted eyes of his
county, kicked out by his guardian ... a disgrace to two honoured
names. ... "The Adjer handed it over. Thought _I_ was the biggest Damn
here, I suppose," Trooper Peerson replied without looking up from his
plate. "Practical silly joke I should think. No one here with such a
l_oath_some, name as _Dam_, of course," but Trooper Punch Peerson had
his philosophic "doots". He, like others of that set, had heard of a
big chap who was a marvel at Sandhurst with the gloves, sword, horse,
and other things, and who had suddenly and marvellously disappeared
into thin air leaving no trace behind him, after some public scandal
or other.... But that was no concern of Trooper Punch Peerson,
gentleman....

With a wary eye on Peerson, Dam lay on his bed, affecting to read a
stale and dirty news-sheet. He saw him slip something beneath his
pillow and swagger out of the barrack-room. Anon no member of the
little band of gentleman-rankers was left. Later, the room was empty,
save for a heavily snoring drunkard and a busy polisher who, at the
shelf-table at the far end of the room, laboured on his jack-boots,
hissing the while, like a groom with a dandy-brush.

Going to Peerson's bed, Dam snatched the letter, returned to his own,
and flung himself down again--his heart pumping as though he had just
finished a mile race. _Lucille had got a letter to him somehow_.
Lucille was not going to drop him yet--in spite of having seen him a
red-handed, crop-haired, "quiff"-wearing, coarse-looking soldier....
Was t