Opposite him sat Harry Bubb, nothing the worse after his tater and vaseline meal. A bright sparkle was in his alert eyes, his legs were crossed and the fingers of his left hand kept strumming idly on the floor. His right hand gripped a mess-tin which he pushed towards the champagne bottle in a slow, guileless manner as if he was doing it knowingly.
Flanagan was there, stripped to the waist and rubbing his body with a towel. He had been out through the village and had just come back, sweating profusely. He had eaten at a café round the corner and made a study of "the movements of masticating jaws" as he expressed it.
"It's damned interesting to watch people eat," he said. "Some eat slowly as if deliberating whether they should swallow the food or spit it out, some eat quickly, trippingly as it were, and some gorge. Those who eat slowly keep their mouths shut, those who eat quickly show their teeth all the time, and those who gorge simply gorge. We were sitting at a long table and I was at the end of the seat. I had a look along the line of moving jaws rising and falling, at the man next to me having a canter...."
"A canter?" queried Bubb.
"Yes, a canter round his teeth with his tongue," said Flanagan; "and at the man opposite whose moving jaw shook his ears until I thought they would fall off!"
Flanagan got no further with his chatter. The door opened, Sergeant Snogger entered followed by a stranger, and glanced keenly about him.
"Watch that candle," he said; "it will fall down on the straw and burn the whole damned place out if you are not careful. And that window, what about it? The light's showing froo and you'll have a shell across 'ere if you're not careful. You're not at 'ome now, boys."
"'Aven't been in Blighty for eighteen months, sarg," said Bubb blandly.
"I've got a new mate for you fellows," said the sergeant, paying no heed to Bubb's remark. "'E 'as just come out an 'e's for this 'ere section.... And another thing," he said, "I s'pose you think yourselves lucky gettin' your pay to-day and gettin' a good night's sleep to-night after fillin' your guts with grub and fizz. Don't you, now?"
"Yes, of course," Bubb assented.