whose soul had gone to the haven of fighting men, he turned away and vanished into the night.
•••••
The next day the Company Commander came round to Battalion Head-quarters.
"My two best subalterns," grunted the Colonel in disgust, "within two days. Very annoying. Good boys—toppers both of them. You'd go quite a way, Dick, before you bettered Brinton and Dixon."
"You would," affirmed the second-in-command. "Quite a way."
"And with all your theorising last night, old man," remarked the Captain slyly, "we both forgot the obvious solution. He got on the fire step, found he couldn't see over—so he clambered up on top. Then, when he was getting down, he was hit, and slithered into the position I found him in."
Staunton regarded the speaker through a haze of tobacco smoke. "I wonder," he murmured at length. "I wonder."
He did not state that during the morning he had made a point of interrogating Jerry Dixon's servant. And that worthy—an old and trusted soldier—had very positively denied that either of the Pelicans Rampant, which formed the regimental badge, had been missing from his master's coat the previous evening.
"Now Mr. Brinton's coat, sir," he remarked thoughtfully, "that did 'ave a badge off, that did. But 'is servant!" He snorted, and dismissed the subject scornfully.
