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‘That’s nice discipline,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether you know it; but in some armies you’d be court-martialled for less than that.’

‘Well, may we, then?’ asked Guy a little impatiently.

‘No salute now!’ cried his superior. ‘I shall never make you fellows smart. Why, at the Haversacks, last Easter, there were half a dozen of us, and we drilled like machines. Of course you mayn’t play tennis–this is only a bivouac; and it’s over now. Attention! The left wing of the force will occupy the shrubbery; the right will push on and blow up the gate.

‘Which of us is the left wing?’ inquired Guy.

‘You are, of course.’

‘Oh, all right; only you said Jack was just now,’ grumbled Guy, who was evidently a little disposed to rebel at being deprived of his tennis.

‘Look here,’ said the General; ‘either let’s do the thing thoroughly, or not do it at all. It’s no pleasure to me to be General, I can tell you; and if I can’t have perfect discipline in the ranks–why, we might as well drop the army altogether!’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Jack, who was a sweet-tempered boy, ‘we won’t do it again.’

And they went off to carry out their separate instructions, Clarence Tinling remaining by the cedar.

‘I have to be a little sharp now and then,’ he explained. ‘Why, if I didn’t keep an iron rule over them, they’d be getting insubordinate in no time. You mustn’t think I’ve any objection to their playing tennis, or anything of that sort; only discipline must be kept up; though it seems severe, perhaps, to you.’

‘It doesn’t seem to be half bad fun for you, at all events,’ said Hazel.

‘Of course,’ added Hilary, whose cheeks were flushed and eyes suspiciously bright as she plucked all the blades of grass that were within her reach, ‘we’re glad if you’re enjoying being here; but it’s a little slow for us girls. You might give the army a half-holiday now and then.’

‘An army, especially a small army, like ours,’ said Clarence, grandly, ‘ought to be constantly prepared for action; else it’s no use. Then, look at the protection it is. Why, we’ve just built a fortified place close to the kitchen garden, where you could all retire to if we were attacked; and, properly provisioned, we could hold out for almost any time.’

‘Thank you,’ said Hilary. ‘I should feel a good deal safer in the box-room. And then, who’s going to attack us?’

‘Well, you never know,’ replied Clarence; ‘but, if they did come, it’s something to feel we should be able to defend ourselves.’

‘Yes, Hilary,’ Cecily remarked, ‘an army would certainly be a great convenience then.’

‘That would depend on what it did,’ said her sister. ‘It wouldn’t be much of a convenience if it ran away.’

‘I don’t think Jack and Guy would ever do that,’ observed Hazel.

‘I suppose that means that you think I should?’ inquired Clarence, who was quick at discovering personal allusions.

‘I wasn’t thinking about you at all,’ said Hazel, with supreme indifference; ‘we don’t know you well enough to say whether you’re brave or not–we do know our brothers.’

‘There wouldn’t be much sense in my being the General if I wasn’t the bravest, would there?’ he demanded.

‘Well, as to that, you see,’ retorted Hilary, ‘we don’t see much sense in any of it.’

‘Girls can’t be expected to see sense in anything,’ he said sulkily.

‘At all events, no one can be expected to see bravery till there’s some danger,’ said Hazel; ‘and there isn’t the least!’

‘That’s all you know about it; but I’ve something more important to do than stay here squabbling. I’m off to see what the army’s up to.’ And he marched off with great pomp.

When he had disappeared, Hilary remarked frankly, ‘Isn’t he a pig?’

‘I don’t think it’s nice to call our visitors “pigs,” Hilary!’ remonstrated Cecily, ‘and he’s not really more greedy than most boys.’

‘Don’t lecture, Cis. I didn’t mean he was that kind of pig–I said he was a pig. And he is!’ said Hilary, not over lucidly. ‘I wonder what Jack and Guy can see in him. I thought that when they wrote asking him to be invited, that he’d be sure to be such a jolly boy!’