This was an awful blow; up till now, Nellie had been the only one person who told him he looked well in his uniform, and now that she should turn on him like this!
"Garn!" he answered, "where's the use in bein' a lamp-post?"
"But Big Bob—I mean Mr. Jones—'e ain't no lamp-post. 'E's a good sight broader in the shoulders than ever you'll be. Why, 'e'd make two of yer, 'e would!"
"Well, 'e don't draw no double pay, no 'ow, and don't yer forget it, neither!"
After half an hour's walk these amenities produced a decided coolness, and when Big Bob strolled up and offered them the pleasure of his company, it was a great relief to both. But Little Willie felt very miserable indeed when he thought over the day's events, as he lay on his hard barrack bed that night and courted sleep in vain.
"I'll make it up with her on Sunday," he kept on saying to himself by way of consolation. But when Sunday came round again, after a long, weary week of bullying, Nellie was absent from the rendezvous, and he wandered disconsolately all over Folkestone in the hope of meeting her. He did meet her—but hanging proudly on the stalwart arm of Bob Jones! Poor Willie did not even reply to her "Good afternoon," but went straight back to his cheerless barrack-room and spent the remainder of the day in putting a vicious polish on his captain's sword and buttons, by way of relieving his feelings.
Captain Archie Trevor was Little Willie's hero—he worshipped him at a distance, and proved his devotion by the care he took of that officer's effects. Captain Trevor's boots were the admiration of the parade, and even the colonel wondered how they always looked so bright and spotless. Willie was an ideal soldier's servant, and was quite happy if he won an occasional word of approbation from his hero; for Willie had never forgotten how, during his first march-out with the battalion, when he was staggering along under his heavy rifle, with blistered feet and aching legs, wondering how long it would be before his knees gave way altogether, his stalwart captain had come up and cheered him with a few words, and had carried his rifle for him all the rest of the long, weary day. "I'd give a month's pay, thet I would, to shake 'ands with the captain," he had afterwards said to a comrade, in a burst of confidence; and so it came about that there was never such an ideal soldier's servant as Little Willie.
That evening A Company had a "smoker" in one of the disused huts of Shorncliffe Camp. The hut was packed with unbelted warriors, who joined noisily in the choruses of the popular songs, and passed round buckets of beer to wet their throats between whiles. Little groups of men were sitting smoking all over the room, some on biscuit-tins, some on benches and tables, all chatting and laughing amongst themselves, and occasionally shouting spicy and personal remarks to the performers, who used a table as a stage, and were not loth to pause in the middle of a song and accept a drink from a proffered mug or pail.
One occupant of the room, however, took little interest in the proceedings. Willie had perched himself in a corner, where he sat unnoticed; why he had come at all he did not know. Perhaps it was that anything was preferable to the deserted barrack-room in his present state of mind. There he sat on an upturned pail, with an untouched mug of beer beside him, giving no heed to what went on around, dismally busy with his own thoughts.
"What-ho, Willie," cried Big Bob, as he espied him for the first time. "What yer so quiet about?"