"Wonder who the new lot is?" said he to a comrade lounging near. "I cawn't place their bloomin' badge."
"'Aven't you 'eard?" said the other. "Blawsted colonials; Canydians, I reckon."
A tall, loose-jointed, sandy-haired youth who approached the two was unmistakably a colonial; there was a certain ranginess that no amount of drilling could ever entirely eradicate.
"Hello, Poppa," he greeted the gray-haired one, who had now resumed his journey toward the dump. "What will you answer when your children say, 'Daddy, what part did you play in the great war?'"
He of the swill bucket spat contemptuously, disdaining to answer. The sandy-haired youth continued airily across the square and up the stairs that led to his quarters. I followed him up the stairs and through a door on which was printed "Thirty-two men," and below, in chalk, "B Company." We entered a long, bare-looking room, down each side of which ran rows of iron cots. Equipments were piled neatly on the beds and on shelves above; two iron-legged, barrack-room tables and a few benches completed the furniture. At one of the tables sat two young men. One of them, a massively built young giant, looked up as the door opened.
"Hello, Art," he said to my conductor. "You're just the man we want. Don't you want to join us in a party to go up to London?"
"No," answered Art; "if you break leave this week, you don't get to the front."
The big fellow stretched his massive frame in a capacious yawn.
"I don't think we'll ever get to the front," he said. "This isn't a regiment. It's an officers' training corps. They gave out a lot more stripes to-day, and one fellow got a star—made him a second lieutenant. You'd think this was the American army; it's nothing but stars and stripes. Soon 't will be an honor to be a private. The worst of it is, they'll come along to me and say, 'What's your name and number?' The only time they ever talk to me is to ask me my name and number; and when I tell them, they put me on crime for not calling them 'Sir,' and when I don't they have me up for insolence."
Art laughed. "Cheer up, old boy," he said; "you'll soon be at the front, and then you won't have to call anybody 'Sir.'"