shortly. I'll take you to the lavabo afterwards, and show you the ropes. Got to have your white kit, arms and accoutrements all klim-bim, as the Germans say, before you dress and go out, or else you'll have to do it in the dark."
"Yes, thanks," replied Rupert. "I'll get straight first. I hate 'spit and polish' after Lights Out. What'll the next meal be?"
"Same as this morning—the eternal 'soupe.' The only variety in food is when dog-biscuit replaces bread…. Nothing to grumble at really, except the infernal monotony. Quantity is all right—in fact some fellows save up a lot of bread and biscuit and sell it in the town. (Eight days salle de police if you're caught.) But sometimes you feel you could eat anything in the wide world except Legion 'soupe,' bread and biscuit…."
After the second and last meal of the day, at about five o'clock, Rupert was introduced to the lavabo and its ways—particularly its ways in the matter of disappearing soap and vanishing "washing"—and, his first essay in laundry-work concluded, returned with Legionary John Bull and the Bucking Bronco for an hour or two of leather-polishing, accoutrement-cleaning and "Ironing" without an iron.
The room began to fill and was soon a scene of more or less silent industry. On his bed, the great Luigi Rivoli lay magnificently asleep, while, on neighbouring cots and benches, his weapons, accoutrements, boots and uniform received the attentions of Messieurs Malvin, Meyer, Tou-tou Boil-the-Cat, Dimitropoulos, Borges, Bauer, Hirsch, and others, his henchmen.
Anon the great man awoke, yawned cavernously,
