We remembered together till close on seven o'clock. As we went out into the gallery that runs round the big hall, we saw The Infant, below, talking to two deferential well-set-up lads whom I had known, on and off, in the holidays, any time for the last ten years. One of them had a bruised cheek, and the other a weeping left eye.
'Yes, that's the style,' said Stalky below his breath. 'They're brought up on lemon-squash and mobilisation text-books. I say, the girls we knew must have been much better than they pretended they were; for I'll swear it isn't the fathers.'
'But why on earth did you do it?' The Infant was shouting. 'You know what it means nowadays.'
'Well, sir,' said Bobby Trivett, the taller of the two, 'Wontner talks too much, for one thing. He didn't join till he was twenty-three, and, besides that, he used to lecture on tactics in the ante-room. He said Clausewitz was the only tactician, and he illustrated his theories with cigar-ends. He was that sort of chap, sir.'
'And he didn't much care whose cigar-ends they were,' said Eames, who was shorter and pinker.
'And then he would talk about the 'Varsity,' said Bobby. 'He got a degree there. And he told us we weren't intellectual. He told the Adjutant so, sir. He was just that kind of chap, sir, if you understand.'
Stalky and I backed behind a tall Japanese jar of chrysanthemums and listened more intently.
'Was all the Mess in it, or only you two?' The Infant demanded, chewing his moustache.
'The Adjutant went to bed, of course, sir, and the Senior Subaltern said he wasn't going to risk his commission--they're awfully down on ragging nowadays in the Service--but the rest of us--er--attended to him,' said Bobby.
'Much?' The Infant asked. The boys smiled deprecatingly.