ng your five quid a
week easy, I suppose?"

"About that," said Doggie. "What were you?"

"I was making my thirty bob a week regular. I was in the fish
business, I was. And now I'm serving my ruddy country at one and
twopence a day. Funny life, ain't it?"

"I can't say it's very enjoyable," said Doggie.

"Not the same as sitting in a snug orfis all day with a pen in your
lily-white 'and, and going 'ome to your 'igh tea in a top 'at. What
made you join up?"

"The force of circumstances," said Doggie.

"Same 'ere," said Mo; "only I couldn't put it into such fancy
language. First my pals went out one after the other. Then the gels
began to look saucy at me, and at last one particular bit of skirt
what I'd been walking out with took to promenading with a blighter in
khaki. It'd have been silly of me to go and knock his 'ead off, so I
enlisted. And it's all right now."

"Just the same sort of thing in my case," replied Doggie. "I'm glad
things are right with the young lady."

"First class. She's straight, she is, and no mistake abaht it. She's
a----"

He paused for a word to express the inexpressive she.

"--A paragon--a peach?"--Doggie corrected himself. Then, as the sudden
frown of perplexed suspicion was swiftly replaced by a grin of
content, he was struck by a bright idea.

"What's her name?"

"Aggie. What's yours?"

"Gladys," replied Doggie with miraculous readiness of invention.

"I've got her photograph," Shendish confided in a whisper, and laid
his hand on his tunic pocket. Then he looked round at the half-filled
canteen to see that he was unobserved. "You won't give me away if I
show it yer, will yer?"

Doggie swore secrecy. The photograph of Aggie, an angular,
square-browed damsel, who looked as though she could guide the most
recalcitrant of fishmongers into the paths of duty, was produced and
thrust into Doggie's hand. He inspected it with polite appreciation,
while his red-headed friend regarded him with fatuous anxiety.

"Charming! charming!" said Doggie in his pleasantest way. "What's her
colouring?"

"Fair hair and blue eyes," said Shendish.

The kindly question, half idle yet unconsciously tactful, was one of
those human things which cost so little but are worth so much. It gave
Doggie a devoted friend.

"Mo," said he, a day or two later, "you're such a decent chap. Why do
you use such abominable language?"

"Gawd knows," smiled Mo, unabashed. "I suppose it's friendly like." He
wr