“Did you ever consider,” said Phineas, “how in a station less exalted than that which you used to adorn, the young of opposite sexes manage to meet, select and marry? Man, the British Army’s going to be a grand education for you in sociology.”
“Well, at any rate, you don’t suppose I’m going to select and marry out of the street?”
“You might do worse,” said Phineas. Then, after a slight pause, he asked: “Have you any news lately from Durdlebury?”
“Confound Durdlebury!” said Doggie.
Phineas checked him with one hand and waved the other towards a hostelry on the other side of the street. “If you will give me the money in advance, so as to evade the ungenerous spirit of the no-treating law, you can stand me a quart of ale at the Crown and Sceptre and join me in drinking to its confusion.”
So they entered the saloon bar of the public-house. Doggie drank a glass of beer while Phineas swallowed a couple of pints. Two or three other soldiers were there, in whose artless talk McPhail joined lustily. Doggie, unobtrusive at the end of the bar, maintained a desultory and uncomfortable conversation with the barmaid, who was of the florid and hearty type, about the weather.
Some days later, McPhail again made allusion to Durdlebury. Doggie again confounded it.
“I don’t want to hear of it or think of it,” he exclaimed, in his nervous way, “until this filthy horror is over. They want me to get leave and go down and stay. They’re making my life miserable with kindness. I wish they’d let me alone. They don’t understand a little bit. I want to get through this thing alone, all by myself.”
“I’m sorry I persuaded you to join a regiment in which you were inflicted with the disadvantage of my society,” said Phineas.
Doggie threw out an impatient arm. “Oh, you don’t count,” said he.