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Beginning with Colonel Kemp, who was preceded by an orderly bearing a small towel and a large loofah, each officer performed a ceremonial ablution; and it was a collection of what Major Wagstaffe termed "bright and bonny young faces" which collected round the Mess table at seven o'clock. It was in every sense a gala meal.

Some day, if Providence wills, the tale shall be resumed; and you shall hear how Major Kemp, Captain Wagstaffe, Ayling, and Bobby Little, assisted by such veterans as Corporal Mucklewame, built up the regiment, with copious drafts and a fresh batch of subalterns, to its former strength. But the title of the story will have to be changed.

At the same time the accomplished Thomas Wagstaffe was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Ipswich, though he continued to earn his living as a physician all the rest of his days. These were clandestine consecrations, for even so well-tried and whole-hearted a Non-Juror as Thomas Hearne, of Oxford, knew nothing about them, though a great friend of both the new Bishops, until long years had sped.

"I don't think," observed Wagstaffe, since Kemp had apparently concluded his philippic, "that young girls are the only people who lose their heads. Consider all the poisonous young blighters that one sees about town just now.

"I wonder if they really mean business this time," surmised that youthful Company Commander, Temporary Captain Bobby Little, to Major Wagstaffe. "It sounds like it," said Wagstaffe, as another salvo of "whizz-bangs" broke like inflammatory surf upon the front-line trenches.

"In yon place." "How would you indicate the position of the place?" "I would pint it oot with ma finger, sirr." "Invisible objects half a mile away are not easily pointed out with the finger," Captain Wagstaffe mentions. "Lance-Corporal Ness, how would you describe it?" "I would tak' you there, sirr." "Thanks! But I doubt if either of us would come back! Private Wemyss?"

What father had ever been worse treated by his daughters than James by Mary and Anne? Mary was gone, cut off in the prime of life, in the glow of beauty, in the height of prosperity; and Anne would do well to profit by the warning. Wagstaffe went further, and dwelt much on certain wonderful coincidences of time. James had been driven from his palace and country in Christmas week.

Gabrielle, anxious to exhibit her new accomplishment, drew nearer, smiled seraphically, and replied "'Ello, Gingeair!" Last of the bunch comes Petit Jean, a chubby and close-cropped youth of about six. Petit Jean is not his real name, as he himself indignantly explained when so addressed by Major Wagstaffe. "Moi, z'ne suis pas Petit Jean; z'suis Maurrrice!"

So never go scouting in your nightshirt, Mucklewame!" The respectable Mucklewame blushes deeply at this outrageous suggestion, but Wagstaffe proceeds

However, knowing the objective, I pushed on towards the Church Tower." "How did you enjoy yourself passing Fosse Eight?" inquired Captain Wagstaffe. "Thank you, we got a dose of our own medicine machine-gun fire, in enfilade. It was beastly." "We also noticed it," Wagstaffe intimated. "That was where poor Sinclair got knocked out. What did you do?"