“Well, how should you?” said The Infant. “You—you're quite different, y' see, sir.”
The Infant expressed his ideas in his tone rather than his words, but Cleever understood the compliment.
“We're only Subs,” said Nevin, “and we aren't exactly the sort of men you'd meet much in your life, I s'pose.”
“That's true,” said Cleever. “I live chiefly among men who write, and paint, and sculp, and so forth. We have our own talk and our own interests, and the outer world doesn't trouble us much.”
“That must be awfully jolly,” said Boileau, at a venture. “We have our own shop, too, but 'tisn't half as interesting as yours, of course. You know all the men who've ever done anything; and we only knock about from place to place, and we do nothing.”
“The Army's a very lazy profession if you choose to make it so,” said Nevin. “When there's nothing going on, there is nothing going on, and you lie up.”
“Or try to get a billet somewhere, to be ready for the next show,” said The Infant with a chuckle.
“To me,” said Cleever softly, “the whole idea of warfare seems so foreign and unnatural, so essentially vulgar, if I may say so, that I can hardly appreciate your sensations. Of course, though, any change from idling in garrison towns must be a godsend to you.”
Like many home-staying Englishmen, Cleever believed that the newspaper phrase he quoted covered the whole duty of the Army whose toils enabled him to enjoy his many-sided life in peace. The remark was not a happy one, for Boileau had just come off the Frontier, The Infant had been on the warpath for nearly eighteen months, and the little red man Nevin two months before had been sleeping under the stars at the peril of his life. But none of them tried to explain, till I ventured to point out that they had all seen service and were not used to idling. Cleever took in the idea slowly.
“Seen service?” said he. Then, as a child might ask, “Tell me. Tell me everything about everything.”