an' the Cath'lics is marched up to their services, rifles an' all.
"The orficer takes charge of one of the detachments, an' in the others the senior N.C.O. for each religion marches at the head. Wotever dodge you try on, there's no gettin' out of it.
"When once you've gone an' accepted the King's shillin', it stands to reason you've got to put up with lots o' things, but Church P'rade's the very limit. Don't you take me for a 'eathen, sir; I'm much more of a believer than 'eaps of others. I don't mind singin' 'ymns, an' when the preacher can talk a bit, I don't objeck to sermons. But what used to get on my nerves was the cleanin' up Sunday mornin's. You've only seen us in khaki; you don't know our peace-time church togs. Some blasted togs they were too, an' no mistake—all glitterin' with blinkin' red an' gold, an' covered with white beltin'. An' the inspection
before you start wasn't no joke, I can tell you. Many's the weeks' pay I've 'ad stopped, all on account of Sunday mornin's. I'm a pretty good soldier on active service, sir—why, you seen me at Loos, didn't you?—but what I can't stick is all them barricks an' fatigues an' cleanin' ups.
"F'r a long time I used to say to myself, 'Brommit, my boy, you're a blasted idiot—I can understand a young rookie with only two or three years' service not managin' to get out of Church P'rade, but a soldier of fifteen years' standin' ought to know the tricks of the trade by this time. If you can't manage to stop quietly in bed on Sunday mornin's, you ain't worth yer service stripes,' I says.
"But the more I thought about it the more 'opeless it seemed. Our colonel was old W. J. Reid—Slippery Bill we used to call 'im, 'cos 'e was as
slippery as a soapy plank! 'E was an old monkey-face, an' no mistake.
"One day I was called up to the orderly-room to sign somethin' or other, an' I sees a poster on the wall: 'Classification according to religions'—neat little chart it was: 'Church of England, so many—Presbyterians, so many—Catholics, so many.' You bet I didn't pay much attention to the numbers. Wot caught my eye was a column sayin', 'Wesleyans, None.' An' all of a sudden I saw my game.
"'Wesleyans, None.' So there wasn't even a bloomin' Wesleyan N.C.O. to take what Wesleyans there might be to chapel! Probably there wasn't even one bloomin' Wesleyan minister in the little Irish town where we was billeted. I saw myself at last stayin' in bed every blessed Sunday mornin'. At the very worst, if that there little religion 'ad a chapel, I'd be sent there on my own, and a detachment
of one can always be trusted to find its way about. Wesleyan—that was the winner.