"Looks a bit dahn-'earted," said the carrier; "dejected-like, as you might say."
"Seeing you've been carrying it upside down for the last twenty-four hours it isn't to be wondered at," said my Troop Sergeant; "blood's run to its head, that's what."
"Turn it the other way up for a bit and run the blood back again," I suggested.
"Exercise is what it wants," said my sergeant firmly.
"By all means exercise it, then," said I.
The carrier demurred. "Very good, sir—but how, sir?"
"Ask the sergeant," said I. "Sergeant, how do you exercise a pigeon? Lunge it, or put it through Swedish monkey motions?"
The sergeant rubbed his chin stubble.
"Can't say I remember the official method, sir; one might take it for a walk at the end of a string, or——"
"These official pigeons," I interposed, "have got to be treated in the official manner or they won't work; their mechanism becomes deranged. We had a pigeon at the Umpteenth Battle of Wipers and upset it somehow. Anyway, when we told it to buzz off and fetch reinforcements, it sat on a tree licking its fluff and singing, and we had to throw mud at it to get it to shift. Where it went to then goodness only knows, for it has never been seen since. I am going to do the right thing by this bird."