"Well, I should like to let them get a glimpse of TOMMY ATKINS at his ease."
"All right, you can pass. But, I say, just warn them to keep quiet when they get near him. We have had no end of a time to smooth him down."
Thus warned, the Sage and Father TIME passed through the hall and entered the smoking-room. Stretched at full length on a couple of chairs was a Private, lazily sipping a glass of brandy and soda-water, that had just been supplied to him by an officer of his own battalion. On withdrawing, the A.D.C. greeted the commissioned waiter who answered to the name of CHARLIE.
"Rather rough, eh?" said he, with a glance at a tray containing a cork-screw and an empty bottle.
"A bit better than Bermuda. If we don't coerce them, we must be polite. After all, fagging turned out the heroes of Winchester and Westminster, and wasn't Waterloo won on the playing-fields of Eton?"
"Rather a dangerous game, isn't it?" observed Mr. Punch. "You'll have to fall in next, and TOMMY will inspect you, and give you a couple of days' extra drill for not having cleaned your rifle!"
"Well, if I don't look after my arms, I shall have merited the punishment; and, after all, it will only be a case of turn and turn about," was the reply. Then the A.D.C. added, "Hang me, too, I believe, with all we fellows have to do nowadays, that if we did change with TOMMY ATKINS, we, and not he, would have the best of the bargain!"
Leaving the Soldiers' Club, Mr. Punch and Father TIME continued their journey. They had not proceeded far, when the A.D.C. invited them to enter a building known as the Museum.