"I'll tell you. You haven't found out yet how much you can hold. That
it?"
The prisoner nods assent.
"Well--find out! See? It's one of the first things a young man ought
to learn. Very valuable piece of information. I know myself, so I'm
safe. Want you to do the same. Every man has a different limit. What
did you have on Saturday?"
Private Robb reflects.
"Five pints, sirr," he announces.
"Well, next time try three, and then you won't go serenading
policemen. As it is, you will have to go before the Commanding Officer
and get punished. Want to go to the front, don't you?"
"Yes, sirr." Private Robb's dismal features flush.
"Well, mind this. We all want to go, but we can't go till every man in
the battalion is efficient. You want to be the man who kept the rest
from going to the front--eh?"
"No, sirr, I do not."
"All right, then. Next Saturday night say to yourself: 'Another pint,
and I keep the Battalion back!' If you do that, you'll come back to
barracks sober, like a decent chap. That'll do. Don't salute with your
cap off. Next man, Sergeant-Major!"
"Good boy, that," remarks the Captain to Bobby Little, as the contrite
Robb is removed. "Keen as mustard. But his high-water mark for beer is
somewhere in his boots. All right, now I've scared him."
"Last prisoner, sirr," announces the Sergeant-Major.
"Glad to hear it. H'm! Private M'Queen again!"
Private M'Queen is an unpleasant-looking creature, with a drooping red
moustache and a cheese-coloured complexion. His misdeeds are recited.
Having been punished for misconduct early in the week, he has piled
Pelion on Ossa by appearing fighting drunk at defaulters' parade.
From all accounts he has livened up that usually decorous assemblage
considerably.
After the corroborative evidence, the Captain asks his usual question
of the prisoner--
"Anything to say?"
"No," growls Private M'Queen.
The Captain takes up the prisoner's conduct-sheet, reads it through,
and folds it up deliberately.
"I am going to ask the Commanding Officer to discharge you," he says;
and there is nothing homely or paternal in his speech now. "Can't make
out why men like you join the Army--especially _this_ Army. Been a
nuisance ever since you came here. Drunk--beastly drunk--four times in
three weeks. Always dirty and insubordinate. Always trying to stir up
trouble among the young soldiers. Been in the army before, haven't
you?"
"No."
"That's not true. Can always tell an old soldier on parade. Fact is,
you have either deserted or been discharged as incorrigible. Going to
be discharged as incorrigible again. Keeping the regiment back, that's
why: that's a real crime. Go home, and explain that you were turned
out of the King's Army because you weren't worthy of the honour of
staying in. When decent men see that people like you have no place in
this regiment, perhaps they will see that this regiment is just the
place for them. Take him away."
Private M'Queen shambles out of the room for the last time in
his life. Captain Blaikie, a little exhausted by his own unusual
loquacity, turns to Bobby Little with a contented sigh.
"That's the last of the shysters," he says. "Been weeding them out for
six weeks. Now I have got rid of that nobleman I can look the rest of
the Company in the face. Come to breakfast!"