"It wasna the Captain: it was the Officer," rejoined Buncle cantankerously.
(It may here be explained, at the risk of another digression, that no length of association or degree of intimacy will render the average British soldier familiar with the names of his officers. The Colonel is "The C.O."; the Second in Command is "The Major"; your Company Commander is "The Captain," and your Platoon Commander "The Officer." As for all others of commissioned rank in the regiment, some twenty-four in all, they are as nought. With the exception of the Quartermaster, in whose shoes each member of the rank and file hopes one day to stand, they simply do not exist.)
"Onyway," pursued the careful Tosh, "he said that if any smoke was shown, all fires was tae be pitten oot. So mind and see no' to get a cauld dinner for us all, Jimmy!"
"Cauld or het," retorted the gentleman addressed, "it's little dinner
I'll be gettin' this day! And ye ken fine why!" he added darkly.
Private Tosh removed a cigarette from his lower lip and sighed patiently.
"For the last time," he announced, with the air of a righteous man suffering long, "I did not lay ma hand on your dirrty wee bit ham!"
"Maybe," countered the bereaved Buncle swiftly, "you did not lay your hand upon it; but you had it tae your breakfast for all that, Davie!"
"I never pit ma hand on it!" repeated Tosh doggedly.
"No? Then I doot you gave it a bit kick with your foot," replied the inflexible Buncle.
"Or got some other body tae luft it for him!" suggested Private Nigg, looking hard at Tosh's habitual accomplice, Cosh.