The
old-time swashbuckling swagger had gone--the swagger of one who would
say: "I am the only live man in this comatose crowd. I am the
dare-devil buccaneer who defies the thunder and sleeps on boards while
the rest of you are lying soft in feather-beds." His direct, cavalier
way he still retained; but the army, with the omnipotent might of its
inherited traditions, had moulded him to its pattern; even as it had
moulded Doggie. And Doggie, who had learned many of the lessons in
human psychology which the army teaches, knew that Oliver's genial,
familiar talk was not all due to his appreciation of their social
equality in the bosom of their own family, but that he would have
treated much the same any Tommy into whose companionship he had been
casually thrown. The Tommy would have said "sir" very scrupulously,
which on Doggie's part would have been an idiotic thing to do; but
they would have got on famously together, bound by the freemasonry of
fighting men who had cursed the same foe for the same reasons. So
Oliver stood out before Doggie's eyes in a new light, that of the
typical officer trusted and beloved by his men, and his heart went out
to him.

"I've brought Chipmunk over," said Oliver. "You remember the freak?
The poor devil hasn't had a day's leave for a couple of years. Didn't
want it. Why should he go and waste money in a country where he didn't
know a human being? But this time I've fixed it up for him and his
leave is coterminous with mine. He has been my servant all through. If
they took him away from me, he'd be quite capable of strangling the
C.O. He's a funny beggar."

"And what kind of a soldier?" the Dean asked politely.

"There's not a finer one in all the armies of the earth," said Oliver.

After much further talk the dressing-gong boomed softly through the
house.

"You've got the green room, Marmaduke," said Peggy. "The one with the
Chippendale stuff you used to covet so much."

"I haven't got much to change into," laughed Doggie.

"You'll find Peddle up there waiting for you," she replied.

And when Doggie entered the green room there he found Peddle, who
welcomed him with tears of joy and a display of all the finikin
luxuries of the toilet and adornment which he had left behind at Denby
Hall. There were pots of pomade and face-cream, and nail-polish;
bottles of hair-wash and tooth-wash; little boxes and brushes for the
moustache, half a dozen gleaming razors, an array of brushes and comb