, file by
file. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_ He scarcely could see them. They were
marching at ease, their rifles slung. They seemed to be appallingly
laden with stupendous packs and multitudinous equipment. A tin mug and
God knows what else beside swung and rattled about their thighs. The
women with them were running to keep up, and dragging children, and
stretching hands into the ranks, and crying--all crying.

...Doo-da! Doo-da!
The Camp Town races are five miles long,
Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!

He thought, "Damn that infernal music." He wiped his eyes. This was
impossible to bear ... _Doo-da! Doo-da!_ A most frightful thing
happened. A boy broke out of the ranks and came running, all rattling
and jingling with swinging accoutrements, to the old woman beside Sabre,
put his arms around her and cried in a most frightful voice, "Mother!
Mother!" And a sergeant, also rattling and clanking, dashed up and
bawled with astounding ferocity, "Get back into the bloody ranks!" And
the boy ran on, rattling. And the old woman collapsed prone upon the
pavement. And the sergeant, as though his amazing ferocity had been the
buttress of some other emotions, bent over the old woman and patted her,
rattling, and said, "That's all right, Mother. That's all right. I'll
look after him. I'll bring him back. That's all right, Mother." And ran
on, jingling. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_

III

He turned away. He absolutely could not bear it. He walked a few paces
and equally could not forbear to stop and look again. The men were
nearly all laughing and whistling and singing.... This bursting
sensation in all his emotions! It was beyond anything he had ever
experienced before. But he had experienced something like it before. His
mind threw back across the years and presented the occasion to him. It
was when he was a very small boy in his first term at Tidborough. The
Christmas term and he was on the Strip, trying frantically behind a
crowd of boys to get a glimpse of the match in progress,--one of the
great matches of the season, vs. Tidborough Town. One of the boys
against whose waist his frantic head was butting turned and said in a
lordly way, "Let that kid through," and he was roughly bundled to a
front position. The boy who had commanded his presence jolted him in the
back with his knee and said, using the school argot for to cheer or
shout, "Swipe up, you ghastly young ass! Swipe up! Can't yo