attention, his leg-of-mutton hands stiffly on the seams of his breeches.
"It"s pretty strong," the general said, "marking a charge-sheet sent down from my department: Case explained. We don't lay charges without due thought. And Lance-Corporal Berry is a particularly reliable N.C.O. I have difficulty enough to get them. Particularly after the late riots. It takes courage, I can tell you."
"If," Tietjens said, "you would see fit, sir, to instruct the G.M.P. not to call Colonial troops damned conscripts, the trouble would be over. . . . We're instructed to use special discretion, as officers, in dealing with troops from the Dominions. They are said to be very susceptible of insult. . . . "
The general suddenly became a boiling pot from which fragments of sentences came away: damned insolence; court of inquiry; damned conscripts they were too. He calmed enough to say:
"They are conscripts, your men, aren't they? They give me more trouble . . . I should have thought that you would have wanted . . . "
Tietjens said:
"No, sir. I have not a man in my unit, as far as it's Canadian or British Columbian, that is not voluntarily enlisted. . . . "
The general exploded to the effect that he was bringing the whole matter before the G.O.C.I.C.'s department. Campion could deal with it how he wished: it was beyond himself. He began to bluster away from them; stopped; directed a frigid bow to Sylvia who was not looking at him; shrugged his shoulders and stormed off.
It was difficult for Sylvia to get hold again of her
