"This won't do, Higgins," he said. "Your brasswork is a disgrace. Look at that button! You will clean that up the moment you get off parade this morning, and I'll have a look at it this afternoon. See?"
"Yessir!" said Higgins dutifully. But he did not see in the least what was to be done. He could not leave his button untouched after what the officer had said, and he did not dare to clean it. In his efforts to solve this problem, he went through his drill movements with an air of preoccupation which excited Sergeant Lees to the verge of apoplexy. But he had his reward in an idea of—for him—surpassing brilliance.
Army custom decrees that when a soldier in uniform goes into mourning, he shall proclaim the fact to the world by covering the second button of his tunic with crepe, or some other black material. Obviously, then, Higgins' easiest way out of his dilemma was to kill some non-existent relative. His difficulty thus settled, he began to apply his mind to the business in hand just in time to save the sergeant's sanity.
The parade finished, Higgins set out to find C.Q.M.S. Piper. That important personage was conferring deeply with the company commander on some subject connected with the issue of rum, and Higgins had to wait; as bad luck would have it, by the time the conference was ended Sergeant-Major French had come up and was standing within easy earshot. Alf tried to pitch his voice so that the sergeant-major should not overhear him, and only succeeded in defeating his own end by becoming completely inaudible.
"Quarters," he said, "can you give me a ee oh ack uff?"
"Now then, my lad!" roared Piper, in a voice which commanded the instant attention of everybody in the hut, "don't whisper sweet nothings to me. Spit it out! What d'yer want? Piece o' what?"
Amid general interest the defeated strategist repeated his request.
"Bit of black stuff, Quarters."
"Bit o' black stuff? What for?"