The sixteenth file looked at his chum, fingering his card uneasily. "Well, Bob, what d'you say? My lassie is won'erful 'ard to convince."
"I'm with you," said his friend. "Mother is a fair terror too."
They tramped after the little man.
A quarter of an hour later they might have been seen tramping back down Victoria Street looking like nothing on earth.
XVII
THE PINCH OF WAR
I came across him on the rim of the bog. He stood before a whitewashed cabin glaring fiercely over the brown world.
A coal-black dudeen hung empty and bottom up from his puckered mouth, a rumpled frieze cap was perilously balanced atop of a fringe of white hair. His full figure, upholstered in a worn velvet waistcoat, was thrust well forward as if daring Fate to hit it another blow.
At the moment he was acting as a scratching-post to a large white billy-goat, which chafed itself luxuriously to and fro against his straddled legs. At the sound of my horse's hoofs he turned his head. At the sight of my uniform his eyes brightened, he withdrew a smutty hand from a corduroy pocket and made a travesty of a salute towards his cap, which almost lost its balance.
"Hey! Good day to ye, Captain!" (I am a second lieutenant, but in Ireland every lance-corporal has visionary batons on his shoulder-straps.)