"You get up alongside me then," said Mrs. Lewknor.
He obeyed.
The crowd made way. The pock-marked man began again to beat his donkey. The procession resumed its march.
"One up for the Hammer-men!" the little lady laughed, as they emerged from the gate of the native city.
"Yes, 'm," said Ernie. "Only one thing. The native city's out of bounds for me."
Mrs. Lewknor smiled.
"I'm not one of the Military Police," she said....
That evening she put to her husband a question that had often puzzled her.
"Why doesn't Caspar get on?" she asked. "He's got twice the intelligence of men who go over his head."
"My dear," replied the Major with the sententiousness that grew on him with the greying years, "intelligence is the last thing we want in the ranks of the Army. Intelligence always leads to indiscipline. The Army wants in the lower ranks only one thing—what is called 'character.' And by character it means the quality of the bull who rammed his head against a brick-wall till he was unconscious and went at it again when he came round saying—My head is bloody but unbowed."