children turned their innocent, all-seeing gaze upon him, he coughed and looked into his helmet as one who suffereth in church.
"Now in this regiment," continued Mrs. Perfect, "there was a little blue-eyed, golden-haired drummer-boy, the sole support of his widowed mother"
"Eightpence a day," murmured Bobball.
"—who had brought him up a total abstainer, not to use malt and spiritual liquors or tobacco in any form. Well, one day, as the Colonel came out of the officers' mess who should he see but this little drummer-boy, whose name was Horace, playing his bugle at the bottom of the steps"
"They allus plays their little bugles there," murmured Bobball.
"—to give his kind officers pleasure, in his spare time. The Colonel smiled kindly and brightly at him and said, 'Step inside and have some refreshment, my little man'. . . ."
"They allus do—jest like that," whispered Bobball, whose face appeared to grow more and more suffused.
