'That will do.' snorted the Meter. 'March your company back to barracks!'
Ruggs replaced his whistle in his pocket in a hang-dog way which showed that he was convinced that his doom was sealed.
'Squads right!' he commanded. 'As you were! I mean, squads left!—Oh, steady! Squads right about! March!'
The company, at route step, had become a ripple of mirth from end to end.
'O Ruggsie!' shouted the Duke, 'I know a good civilian tailor!'
The remark brought on a quantity of local laughter, and Naughty did not help matters much by starting, 'Keep the home fires burning.'
That evening the flank of Company Number 1 individually condoled with Ruggs, who was trying to decipher how he could be so full of so many different kinds of mistakes.
'He’s got the raspberry all right,' commented the Duke, before a large group, including Ruggs.
The 'raspberry,' be it said, was the name applied to the Sword of Damocles suspended by the Meter. When he called a failing candidate into the orderly room and implied that a resignation would be in order, that lost soul was known the company over as 'getting the raspberry,' or 'rasp.'