‘I don’t say it isn’t,’ said the corporal ‘I’m saying what it used to be.’
‘We-ell,’ the private screwed up the callipers, ‘didn’t you feel a little bit that way yourself—when you were a civilian?’
‘I—I don’t think I did.’ The corporal was taken aback. ‘I don’t think I ever thought about it.’
‘Ah! There you are!’ said the private, very drily.
Some one laughed in the shadow of the landau dressing-room. ‘Anyhow, we’re all in it now, Private Percy,’ said a voice.
There must be a good many thousand conversations of this kind being held all over England nowadays. Our breed does not warble much about patriotism or Fatherland, but it has a wonderful sense of justice, even when its own shortcomings are concerned.
We went over to the drill-shed to see the men paid.
The first man I ran across there was a sergeant who had served in the Mounted Infantry in the South African picnic that we used to call a war. He had been a private chauffeur for some years—long enough to catch the professional look, but was joyously reverting to service type again.
The men lined up, were called out, saluted emphatically at the pay-table, and fell back with their emoluments. They smiled at each other.
‘An’ it’s all so funny,’ murmured the master builder in my ear. ‘About a quarter—no, less than a quarter—of what one ‘ud be making on one’s own!’