Being instructed to “go and get measured for his hoof-picker” Dam had not resented, though he had considered it something of an insult to his intelligence that Hawker should expect to “have” him so easily as that.  He had taken in good part the arrangement of his bed in such a way that it collapsed and brought a pannikin of water down with it, and on to it, in the middle of a cold night.  He had received with good humour, and then with silent contempt, the names of “Gussie the Bank Clurk,” references to “broken-dahn torfs” and “tailor’s bleedn’ dummies,” queries as to the amount of “time” he had got for the offence that made him a “Queen’s Hard Bargain,” and various the other pleasantries whereby Herbert showed his distaste for people whose accent differed from his own, and whose tastes were unaccountable.

Dam had borne these things because he was certain he could thrash the silly animal when the time came, and because he had a wholesome dread of the all-too-inevitable military “crimes” (one of which fighting is—­as subversive of good order and military discipline).

It had come, however, and for Dam this exotic of the Ratcliffe Highway had thereafter developed a vast admiration and an embarrassing affection.  It was a most difficult matter to avoid his companionship when “walking-out” and also to avoid hurting his feelings.

It was a humiliating and chastening experience to the man, who had supported himself by boxing in booths at fairs and show-grounds, to find this “bloomin’ dook of a ‘Percy,’” this “lah-de-dar ‘Reggie’” who looked askance at good bread-and-dripping, this finnicky “Clarence” without a “bloody” to his conversation, this “blasted, up-the-pole[17] ‘Cecil’”—­a man with a quicker guard, a harder punch, a smarter ring-craft, a better wind, and a tougher appetite for “gruel” than himself.

The occasion was furnished by a sad little experience.

Poor drunken Trooper Bear (once the Honourable MacMahon FitzUrse), kindliest, weakest, gentlest of gentlemen, had lurched one bitter soaking night (or early morning) into the barrack-room, singing in a beautiful tenor:—­

“Menez-moi” dit la belle,
“A la rive fidele
Ou l’on aime toujours.”
...—­“Cette rive ma chere
On ne la connait guere
Au pays des amours."....

Trooper Herbert Hawker had no appreciation for Theophile Gautier—­or perhaps none for being awakened from his warm slumbers.

“’Ere! stow that blarsted catawaulin’,” he roared, with a choice selection from the Whitechapel tongue, in which he requested the adjectived noun to be adverbially “quick about it, too”.

With a beatific smile upon his weak handsome face, Trooper Bear staggered toward the speaker, blew him a kiss, and, in a vain endeavour to seat himself upon the cot, collapsed upon the ground.

“You’re a....” (adverbially adjectived noun) shouted Hawker.  “You ain’t a man, you’re a....” “[Greek:  skias hovar havthropos]” ...  “Man is the dream of a shadow,” suggested Bear dreamily with a hiccup....