Through
him the two men, the sentimental Cockney fishmonger and the wastrel
Cambridge graduate, had become friends. He spent with them all his
leisure time.

Then one of the silly tragi-comedies of life occurred. McPhail got
drunk in the crowded bar of a little public-house in the village. It
was the last possible drink together of the draft and their pals. The
draft was to entrain before daybreak on the morrow. It was a foolish,
singing, shouting khaki throng. McPhail, who had borrowed ten pounds
from Doggie, in order to see him through the hardships of the Front,
established himself close by the bar and was drinking whisky. He was
also distributing surreptitious sixpences and shillings into eager
hands, which would convert them into alcohol for eager throats.
Doggie, anxious, stood by his side. The spirit from which McPhail had
for so long abstained, mounted to his unaccustomed brain. He began to
hector, and, master of picturesque speech, he compelled an admiring
audience. Doggie did not realize the extent of his drunkenness until,
vaunting himself as a Scot and therefore the salt of the army, he
picked a quarrel with a stolid Hampshire giant, who professed to have
no use for Phineas's fellow-countrymen. The men closed. Suddenly some
one shouted from the doorway:

"Be quiet, you fools! The A.P.M.'s coming down the road."

Now the Assistant Provost Marshal, if he heard hell's delight going on
in a tavern, would naturally make an inquisitorial appearance. The
combatants were separated. McPhail threw a shilling on the bar counter
and demanded another whisky. He was about to lift the glass to his
lips when Doggie, terrified as to what might happen, knocked the glass
out of his hand.

"Don't be an ass," he cried.

Phineas was very drunk. He gazed at his old pupil, took off his cap,
and, stretching over the bar, hung it on the handle of a beer-pull.
Then, staggering back, he pointed an accusing finger.

"He has the audacity to call me an ass. Little blinking Marmaduke
Doggie Trevor. Little Doggie Trevor, whom I trained up from infancy in
the way he shouldn't go----"

"Why Doggie Trevor?" some one shouted in inquiry.

"Never mind," replied Phineas with drunken impressiveness. "My old
friend Marmaduke has spilled my whisky and called me an ass. I call
him Doggie, little Doggie Trevor. You all bear witness he knocked the
drink out of my mouth. I'll never forgive him. He doesn't like being
called Doggie--and I've no