Judkins was the last man in the world one would have expected to meet
in the fashionable costume of the day. To begin with, he was well over
age. And then he was on the quiet side, usually looking for some
odd, old thought which had gone astray, and possessed of one of those
travelling mentalities which take note of all sides of a subject. Yet
there he stood in khaki.
"The very last man in the world I expected to see like this," I said.
It was quite true. Judkins was the sort who would have attempted
dreamy analyses with the drill-instructor.
"Don't blame me, old thing," he said with a shade of melancholy. "I
know I am stiff and over age and all that, but the recruiting fellow
said he would willingly overlook a decade. There was nothing else for
it. It was the only way."
"How do you mean, 'the only way'?" I asked.
Judkins sighed.
"It was like this," he explained sadly. "I should have joined up
before, but I have always tried to keep to the truth ever since I was
seven and told a lie, and felt that I was lost. But I gave in at last.
If Lord DERBY looks at my papers he will think I am forty. So I
am, and a bit more. I meant to deceive his lordship, though it went
against the grain. I am sure I don't know what Mr. WALTER LONG
will say if he ever finds out what I have done. I can picture him
exclaiming, 'Here's this man, Private Judkins, declaring he is only
forty, when to my certain knowledge he was born in '66.'
"I am risking all that because life became insupportable. There was
hardly anybody left I cared about. The one waiter at my favourite
restaurant who didn't breathe down one's neck when he was holding the
vegetables--he had joined; and the person who understood cigars at the
corner shop, he is in it too. The new man doesn't know the difference
between a Murias and a Manilla. It was the same all round. There was
nobody to cut my hair. My barber was forming fours. It is a wonder
to me why the War people have had to hunt the slippers, the chaps who
have held back, for there is very little to tempt one to keep out of
the crowd now. I've joined so as to be with the fellows I know. Don't
go and put it all down to patriotism; it was just sheer loneliness.
The man who sold me my evening paper--you remember him? he had a
squint and used to invest in Spanish lotteries and get me to translate
the letters he received--he is a soldier now; and so is the bootblack
who asked for tips for the races, and the door-keeper at the offices.
They're all wearing khaki, all in; and it wasn't the same world
without them, only a dreary make-believe, and so I decided to deceive
the War Office and join my friends. Every day I am finding the folk
I'd lost. The Corporal with whom I do most business was checktaker
at a theatre I used to frequent--always told me whether the show was
worth the money before I parted. And the life is suiting me fairly
well. Last week's route-march in the rain was a far, far wetter thing
than I had ever done, but----"
He turned and gravely saluted an officer who was coming up on the
wind....
[Illustration: THE TABLES TURNED.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: NEWS FOR THE ENEMY.
_Mrs. Brown._ "HAVE YOU HEARD AS HOW OUR JIM HAS GOT HIS STRIPE?"
_Mr. Smith._ "HUSH, WOMAN! DON'T YOU SEE THAT NOTICE?"]
* * * * *