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“Fall ’em all in on the platform, march’em to the gangways,” I answered, “and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the baggage and drunks in later.”

“Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know that game,” Verschoyle drawled. “We don’t play it any more. Look!”

He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty- pound bag.

“Pack away,” cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can compare it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed, stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.

“Of course on a trooper there’d be a company below stacking the kit away,” said Verschoyle, “but that wasn’t so bad.”

“Bad!” I cried. “It was miraculous!”

“Circus-work–all circus-work!” said Pigeon. “It won’t prevent ’em bein’ sick as dogs when the ship rolls.” The crowd round us applauded, while the men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.

A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.

“Have we made good, Bayley?” he said. “Are we en tat de partir?“

“That’s what I shall report,” said Bayley, smiling.

“I thought my bit o’ French ‘ud draw you,” said the little man, rubbing his hands.

“Who is he?” I whispered to Pigeon.

“Ramsay–their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say he spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns till he came into his property.”

“Take ’em home an’ make ’em drunk,” I heard Bayley say. “I suppose you’ll have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the officers of E company that I don’t think much of them. I sha’n’t report it, but their men were all over the shop.”

“Well, they’re young, you see,” Colonel Ramsay began.

“You’re quite right. Send ’em to me and I’ll talk to ’em. Youth is the time to learn.”

“Six hundred a year,” I repeated to Pigeon. “That must be an awful tax on a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days.”

“That’s where you make your mistake,” said Verschoyle. “In the old days a man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they weren’t the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour of putting in drills, didn’t they? And they were, most of ’em, the children we have to take over at Second Camp, weren’t they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure of his men, now that he hasn’t to waste himself in conciliating an’ bribin’, an’ beerin’ kids, he doesn’t care what he spends on his corps, because every pound tells. Do you understand?”

“I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed—-“

“And trained material at that,” Pigeon put in. “Eight years in the schools, remember, as well as—-“

“Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That’s as it should be,” I said.

“Bayly’s saying the very same to those F. S. pups,” said Verschoyle.

The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the shoulder of each.

“Yes, that’s all doocid interesting,” he growled paternally. “But you forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you’re trebly bound to put a polish on ’em. You’ve let your company simply go to seed. Don’t try and explain. I’ve told all those lies myself in my time. It’s only idleness. I know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow and I’ll give you a wrinkle or two in barracks.” He turned to me.

“Suppose we pick up Vee’s defeated legion and go home. You’ll dine with us to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you’re en etat de partir, right enough. You’d better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you want the corps sent foreign. I’m no politician.”