to slog along under the burden. He even
learned to dig. That was the worst and most back-breaking art of all.

Now and then Phineas McPhail and himself would get together and walk
into the little seaside town. It was out of the season and there was
little to look at save the deserted shops and the squall-fretted pier
and the maidens of the place who usually were in company with lads in
khaki. Sometimes a girl alone would give Doggie a glance of shy
invitation, for Doggie in his short slight way was not a bad-looking
fellow, carrying himself well and wearing his uniform with instinctive
grace. But the damsel ogled in vain.

On one such occasion Phineas burst into a guffaw.

"Why don't you talk to the poor body? She's a respectable girl enough.
Where's the harm?"

"Go 'square-pushing'?" said Doggie contemptuously, using the soldiers'
slang for walking about with a young woman. "No, thank you."

"And why not? I'm not counselling you, laddie, to plunge into a course
of sensual debauchery. But a wee bit gossip with a pretty innocent
girl----"

"My dear good chap," Doggie interrupted, "what on earth should I have
in common with her?"

"Youth."

"I feel as old as hell," said Doggie bitterly.

"You'll be feeling older soon," replied Phineas, "and able to look
down on hell with feelings of superiority."

Doggie walked on in silence for a few paces. Then he said:

"A thing I can't understand is this mania for picking up girls--just
to walk about the streets with them. It's so inane. It's a disease."

"Did you ever consider," said Phineas, "how in a station less exalted
than that which you used to adorn, the young of opposite sexes manage
to meet, select and marry? Man, the British Army's going to be a grand
education for you in sociology."

"Well, at any rate, you don't suppose I'm going to select and marry
out of the street?"

"You might do worse," said Phineas. Then, after a slight pause, he
asked: "Have you any news lately from Durdlebury?"

"Confound Durdlebury!" said Doggie.

Phineas checked him with one hand and waved the other towards a
hostelry on the other side of the street. "If you will give me the
money in advance, so as to evade the ungenerous spirit of the
no-treating law, you can stand me a quart of ale at the Crown and
Sceptre and join me in drinking to its confusion."

So they entered the saloon bar of the public-house. Doggie drank a
glass of beer while Phineas swallowed a couple of pints.