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If he enlisted into a scientific corps, the chance of being almost immediately employed as a clerk was good, very much of the work would be interesting to an educated and practical man; the "marching, pipe-claying and starching," of which Dennis sang, was a secondary part of "R.E." duties at any time, and there were special opportunities of employment in foreign countries for superior men.
The gentlemen of the old yeomanry who had not servants to do it for them, did their own pipe-claying, and might generally be seen doing it very indifferently to the accompaniment of private whistling or social bawling to each other over adjacent walls in the back courts and greens of Priorton.
I suppose that for drilling, training, and pipe-claying the human mind all these things are necessary. I suppose, that, in our callow days, it is proper that we should be birched and wear fetters upon our little, bandy, sausage-like legs.
Along with these in many cases came judicious presents of poultry and game. There were such hand-shakings in the usually quiet streets, such groomings of horses at stables behind old-fashioned little taverns, such pipe-claying of belts and polishing of helmets, and, above all, such joyous anticipatory parties in private houses!
As soon as they were out of sight Bob went off for a pike, and his father, first new-flinting his firelock, proceeded to don his uniform, pipe-claying his breeches with such cursory haste as to bespatter his black gaiters with the same ornamental compound.
The parade ground had already been swept like a floor, and groups of soldiers were gathered about the barracks busily burnishing and cleaning their arms, pipe-claying belts and rotten-stoning buckles and buttons, and at the further end near the stables horses were in process of being groomed and fed; one of them, young and wild, broke away, and in a mad scamper, with tossing mane and tail, and head erect and hoofs scattering the gravel, plunged around and around the enclosure, baffling his groom.
"I'll try," replied Dennis, and judging by the sound, he did try then and there, singing as he twirled, "Bad luck to this marching, Pipe-claying and starching, How neat one must be to be killed by the French!" But O'Brien's audible delight and the progress of the song were checked by the lieutenant, who had dressed himself, and was now in the sitting-room. "O'Brien!" "Sorr!" "If Mr.
"Well, when Peter was lieutenant-colonel of the Kilkennys, who, I may remark, en passant, as the French say, were the neediest-looking devils in the whole service, he never let them alone from morning till night, drilling and pipe-claying and polishing them up. 'Nothing will make soldiers of you, said Peter, 'but, by the rock of Cashel!
It is to be presumed that in the pipe-claying days of peace the hours were apt to hang heavy in barracks, and the furbishing of buttons was devised not alone for smartness' sake, but to occupy idle hands for which otherwise Satan might be finding some more mischievous employment.
A brief pause followed, after which, to the evident delight of his expectant audience, he began the following song, to the popular air of "Paddy O'Carroll": Air, Paddy O'Carroll. Bad luck to this marching, Pipe-claying, and starching, How neat one must be to be killed by the French, I'm sick of parading, Through wet and cowld wading, Or standing all night to be shot in a trench.
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