“What’s the attraction?” asked “A.  B.,” more amazed than ever.

“Why, don’t you see,” explained the next door lady, “our back windows open upon the barrack yard.  A girl living in one of these houses is always close to soldiers.  By looking out of window she can always see soldiers; and sometimes a soldier will nod to her, or even call up to her.  They never dream of asking for wages.  They’ll work eighteen hours a day, and put up with anything just to be allowed to stop.”

“A.B.” profited by this information, and engaged the girl who offered the five pounds premium.  She found her a perfect treasure of a servant.  She was invariably willing and respectful, slept on a sofa in the kitchen, and was always contented with an egg for her dinner.

[Illustration:  “A SOLDIER’S ARM ROUND THE WAIST.”]

The truth of this story I cannot vouch for.  Myself, I can believe it.  Brown and MacShaugnassy made no attempt to do so, which seemed unfriendly.  Jephson excused himself on the plea of a headache.  I admit there are points in it presenting difficulties to the average intellect.  As I explained at the commencement, it was told to me by Ethelbertha, who had it from Amenda, who got it from the charwoman, and exaggerations may have crept into it.  The following, however, were incidents that came under my own personal observation.  They afforded a still stronger example of the influence exercised by Tommy Atkins upon the British domestic, and I therefore thought it right to relate them also to the boys.

“The heroine of them,” I said, “is our Amenda.  Now, you would call her a tolerably well-behaved, orderly young woman, would you not?”

“She is my ideal of unostentatious respectability,” answered MacShaugnassy.

“That was my opinion also,” I replied.  “You can, therefore, imagine my feelings on passing her one evening in the Folkestone High Street with a Panama hat upon her head (my Panama hat), and a soldier’s arm round her waist.  She was one of a mob, composed of all the unoccupied riff-raff of Folkestone, who were following the band of the Third Berkshire Infantry, then in camp at Sandgate.  There was an ecstatic, far-away look in her eyes.  She was dancing rather than walking, and with her left hand she beat time to the music.”

“I should say you were suffering from a mild attack of D.T. when you saw all that,” said MacShaugnassy.

“So I might have thought myself,” I said; “but Ethelbertha was with me at the time, and she saw it too.  We stared after the procession until it had turned the corner, and then we stared at each other.

“‘Oh, it’s impossible,’ said Ethelbertha to me.

“‘But that was my hat,’ I said to Ethelbertha.

“The moment we reached home Ethelbertha looked for Amenda, and I looked for my hat.  Neither were to be found.

[Illustration:  “AND HUNG MY HAT UP.”]

“Nine o’clock struck, ten o’clock struck.  At half-past ten, we went down and got our own supper, and had it in the kitchen.  At a quarter-past eleven, Amenda returned.  She walked into the kitchen without a word, hung my hat up behind the door, and commenced clearing away the supper things.