et you talk this way for old acquaintance's
sake, but I wouldn't take it from any one else."

"Fiddlesticks! You know I'm right. The Anglian officers like to hint at
the frauds in our quartermaster's department at Havilla, but I shut
them up by asking how much their officers made off the horses they
bought for South Africa in Hungary. Then they shut up like a
clasp-knife. Officers talk a lot about their 'brother officers,' and
you'd think they loved each other a lot, but I find they're all glad
so many were killed in South Africa because it gives them a lot of
promotion. I tell you the officers of all the armies like to have a
good list of dead officers after each battle, if they are only their
superiors in rank. I've been picking up all I can among the different
soldiers, and learning a lot. I was just talking to a lot of Anglian
soldiers now. They were sharpening sabers and bayonets on grindstones.
One of the older ones was telling me how they used to flog in the army.
They had a regular parade, and the drummers used to lay on the lash,
while a doctor watched so that they shouldn't go too far. Sometimes the
young subalterns who were in command would faint away at the sight.

"'But it was so manly, sir,' the fellow said to me. 'The army isn't
what it was. But the other armies keep it up still, and we still birch
youngsters in the navy so we needn't despair of the world.'"

"When will the campaign be over?" asked Sam.

"There's no telling. All the armies are afraid to leave, for fear the
ones that are left will get some advantage from the Porsslanese
Government. They're a high old lot of allies. It's a queer business.
But the missionaries are as queer as any of them. You ought to have
heard old Amen last Sunday. How he whooped things up! He took his text
from the Gospel of St. Loot, I think! He was trying to stir up Taffy to
be more severe. Amen ought to be a soldier. Our minister
plenipotentiary isn't a backward chap either. I went through the
Imperial palace with him and his party the other day, and they pretty
nearly cleaned it out, just for souvenirs, you know. He didn't take
anything himself, as far as I could see; but his women, bless my soul,
they filled their pockets with jade and ivory and what-not. There were
some foreign looters in there at the same time, great swells too, and
they just smashed the plate-glass over the cabinets and filled their
pockets and their arms too