"Funny being a private with all that money. I wonder you didn't ask him."
"I didn't, anyway. But you see the point now. No end of a joke for the quartermaster to try and get a man who allowed his wife four thousand a year to deduct sixpence a week to send to her! I thought I should have died of laughing."
The first soldier remained impassive. "And what happened?" he asked at last.
"What happened?"
"Yes, what was done about it? The sixpence, I mean. Did he agree to send it?"
The second soldier pulled himself together. "Oh, I don't know," he said shortly. "That's not the point."
"After all," the other continued, "the regulations say that married men have to deduct sixpence for their wives, don't they?"
"Yes, of course," the other replied. "But this man, I tell you, already gave her four thousand a year."
"That doesn't really touch it," said the first soldier. "The principle's the same. Now——"
But I could stand the humiliation of the other honest fellow, so brimming with anecdote and cheerfulness, no longer; and I came to his rescue with my cigarette case. For I have had misfires myself too often.