icks like hell."

"Wotever for? I ain't never ridden no 'osses."

"You're going to learn, you unmilitary-looking, worm-eaten scab.
You've got to be a ruddy soldier."

"Gorblime!" said Chipmunk, "that's the first I 'eard of it. A 'oss
soldier? You're not kiddin', are you, Cap'en?"

"Certainly not."

"Gorblime! Who would ha' thought it?" Then he spat lustily and sucked
at his pipe.

"You've nothing to say against it, have you?"

"No, Cap'en."

"All right. And look here, when we're in the army you must chuck
calling me Cap'en."

"What shall I have to call yer? Gineral?" Chipmunk asked simply.

"Mate, Bill, Joe--any old name."

"Ker-ist!" said Chipmunk.

"Do you know why we're going to enlist?"

"Can't say as 'ow I does, Cap'en."

"You chuckle-headed swab! Don't you know we're at war?"

"I did 'ear some talk about it in a pub one night," Chipmunk admitted.
"'Oo are we fighting? Dutchmen or Dagoes?"

"Dutchmen."

Chipmunk spat in his horny hands, rubbed them together and smiled. As
each individual hair on his face seemed to enter into the smile, the
result was sinister.

"Do you remember that Dutchman at Samoa, Cap'en?"

Oliver smiled back. He remembered the hulking, truculent German
merchant whom Chipmunk, having half strangled, threw into the sea. He
also remembered the amount of accomplished lying he had to practise in
order to save Chipmunk from the clutches of the law and get away with
the schooner.

"We leave here to-morrow," said Oliver. "In the meanwhile you'll have
to shave your ugly face."

For the first time Chipmunk was really staggered. He gaped at Oliver's
retiring figure. Even his limited and time-worn vocabulary failed him.
The desperate meaning of the war has flashed suddenly on millions of
men in millions of different ways. This is the way in which it flashed
on Chipmunk.

He sat on his bucket pondering over the awfulness of it and sucking
his pipe long after it had been smoked out. The Dean's car drove into
the yard and the chauffeur, stripping off his coat, prepared to clean
it down.

"Say, guv'nor," said Chipmunk hoarsely, "what do you think of this
'ere war?"

"Same as most people," replied the chauffeur tersely. He shared in the
general disapproval of Chipmunk.

"But see 'ere. Cap'en he tells me I must shave me face and be a 'oss
soldier. I never shaved me face in me life, and I dunno 'ow to do it,
just as I dunno 'ow to ride a 'oss. I'm a sailorman, I am, and
sailo