inkled his brow in thought for an instant. "That's where I think
you're making a mistake, old pal, if you don't mind my mentioning it.
I know what yer are, but the others don't. You're not friendly enough.
See what I mean? Supposin' you say as you would in a city restoorang
when you're 'aving yer lunch, 'Will yer kindly pass me the
salt?'--well, that's standoffish--they say 'Come off it! 'But if you
look about and say, 'Where's the b----y salt?' that's friendly. They
understand. They chuck it at you."

Said Doggie, "It's very--I mean b----y--difficult."

So he tried to be friendly; and if he met with no great positive
success, he at least escaped animosity. In his spare time he mooned
about by himself, shy, disgusted, and miserable. Once, when a group of
men were kicking a football about, the ball rolled his way. Instead of
kicking it back to the expectant players, he picked it up and advanced
to the nearest and handed it to him politely.

"Thanks, mate," said the astonished man, "but why didn't you kick it?"

He turned away without waiting for a reply. Doggie had not kicked it
because he had never kicked a football in his life and shrank from an
exhibition of incompetence.

At drill things were easier than on Salisbury Plain, his actions being
veiled in the obscurity of squad or platoon or company. Many others
besides himself were cursed by sergeants and rated by subalterns and
drastically entreated by captains. He had the consolation of community
in suffering. As a trembling officer he had been the only one, the
only one marked and labelled as a freak apart, the only one stuck in
the eternal pillory. Here were fools and incapables even more dull and
ineffective than he. A plough-boy fellow-recruit from Dorsetshire,
Pugsley by name, did not know right from left, and having mastered the
art of forming fours, could not get into his brain the reverse process
of forming front. He wept under the lash of the corporal's tongue; and
to Doggie these tears were healing dews of Heaven's distillation. By
degrees he learned the many arts of war as taught to the private
soldier in England. He could refrain from shutting his eyes when he
pressed the trigger of his rifle, but to the end of his career his
shooting was erratic. He could perform with the weapon the other
tricks of precision. Unencumbered he could march with the best. The
torture of the heavy pack nearly killed him; but in time, as his
muscles developed, he was able