“Perhaps they do,” said Bobby simply.

It was close on midnight.  Our “two old soldiers, broken in the wars,” levered themselves stiffly to their feet, and prepared to depart.

“Heigho!” said Wagstaffe.  “It is time for two old wrecks like us to be in bed.  That’s what we are, Bobby—­wrecks, dodderers, has-beens!  But we have had the luck to last longer than most.  We have dodged the missiles of the Boche to an extent which justifies us in claiming that we have followed the progress of their war with a rather more than average degree of continuity.  We were the last of the old crowd, too.  Kemp has got his Brigade, young Cockerell has gone to be a Staff Captain, and—­you and I are here.  Some of the others dropped out far too soon.  Young Lochgair, old Blaikie—­”

“Waddell, too,” said Bobby.  “We joined the same day.”

“And Angus M’Lachlan.  I think he would have made the finest soldier of the lot of us,” added Wagstaffe.  “You remember his remark to me, that we only had the bye to play now?  He was a true prophet:  we are dormy, anyhow. (Only cold feet at Home can let us down now.) And he only saw three months’ service!  Still, he made a great exit from this world, Bobby, and that is the only thing that matters in these days.  Ha!  H’m!  As our new Allies would say, I am beginning to ‘pull heart stuff’ on you.  Let us go to bed.  Sleeping here?”

“Yes, till to-morrow.  Then off on leave.”

“How much have you got?”

“A month.  I say?”

“Yes?”

“Are you doing anything on the nineteenth?”

Wagstaffe regarded his young friend suspiciously.

“Is this a catch of some kind?” he enquired.

“Oh, no.  Will you be my—­” Bobby turned excessively pink, and completed his request.

Wagstaffe surveyed him resignedly.

“We all come to it, I suppose,” he observed.

“Only some come to it sooner than others.  Are you of age, my lad?  Have your parents—­”

“I’m twenty-two,” said Bobby shortly.

“Will the bridesmaids be pretty?”

“They are all peaches,” replied Bobby, with enthusiasm.  “But nothing whatever,” he added, in a voice of respectful rapture, “compared with the bride!”

THE END