And Hector had gone to the guard-house and interviewed the lawless trooper.
“Look here,” he had said, “you'll get jolly well kicked out of the service in disgrace.”
“A fat bloomin' lot I'd care,” had come the sneering reply.
“But you will also get two years' hard labor,” Hector had continued—which put a different complexion altogether on the matter and made the argument much more persuasive.
“You're in for it,” he had said, “either jail—or you behave yourself and stay with the colors. Why, man, the army isn't so bad. Of course you have to do what you are told. So have I. So has the colonel. So has everybody.”
“I 'ytes the army,” Bill Dockeray had insisted, stubbornly, aggressively.
“Take some interest in your work,” Hector had replied. “Make the best of it. Why, there must be something about the service that you like. Let's see if we can find it between us.”
And, after fifteen minutes' careful and tactful questioning, he had discovered that the lawless recruit took quite a little interest in farriery, his father having been a veterinary in the Midlands—with the ultimate result, that, half a year later, Private Bill Dockeray had become Farrier Sergeant William Dockeray, had been heard to speak about the honor of the “bloomin' old rag,” meaning the Union Jack, with a great deal of proprietary pride, and had severely manhandled one Bert Simmonds, trooper, for having
