The respectable Mucklewame blushes deeply at this outrageous suggestion, but Wagstaffe proceeds—­

“Now, supposing I sent you out scouting, and you discovered that over there—­somewhere in the middle of this field”—­he lays a finger on the field in question—­“there was a fold in the ground where a machine-gun section was concealed:  what would you do when you got back?”

“I would tell you, sirr,” replied Private M’Micking politely.

“Tell me what?”

“That they was there, sirr.”

“Where?”

“In yon place.”

“How would you indicate the position of the place?”

“I would pint it oot with ma finger, sirr.”

“Invisible objects half a mile away are not easily pointed out with the finger,” Captain Wagstaffe mentions.  “Lance-Corporal Ness, how would you describe it?”

“I would tak’ you there, sirr.”

“Thanks!  But I doubt if either of us would come back!  Private Wemyss?”

“I would say, sirr, that the place was west of the mansion-hoose.”

“There’s a good deal of land west of that mansion-house, you know,” expostulates the Captain gently; “but we are getting on.  Thompson?”

“I would say, sir,” replies Thompson, puckering his brow, “that it was in ablow they trees.”

“It would be hard to indicate the exact trees you meant.  Trees are too common.  You try, Corporal King.”

But Corporal King, who earned his stripes by reason of physical rather than intellectual attributes, can only contribute a lame reference to “a bit hedge by yon dyke, where there’s a kin’ o’ hole in the tairget.”  Wagstaffe breaks in—­

“Now, everybody, take some conspicuous and unmistakable object about the middle of that landscape—­something which no one can mistake.  The mansion-house will do—­the near end.  Now then—­mansion-house, near end!  Got that?”

There is a general chorus of assent.

“Very well.  I want you to imagine that the base of the mansion-house is the centre of a great clock-face.  Where would twelve o’clock be?”

The platoon are plainly tickled by this new round-game.  They reply—­

“Straught up!”

“Right.  Where is nine o’clock?”

“Over tae the left.”

“Very good.  And so on with all the other hours.  Now, supposing I were to say, End of mansion-house—­six o’clock—­white gate—­you would carry your eye straight downward, through the garden, until it encountered the gate.  I would thus have enabled you to recognise a very small object in a wide landscape in the quickest possible time.  See the idea?”

“Yes, sirr.”

“All right.  Now for our fold in the ground. End of mansion-house—­eight o’clock—­got that?”

There is an interested murmur of assent.

“That gives you the direction from the house.  Now for the distance! End of mansion-house—­eight o ’clock—­two finger-breadths—­what does that give you, Lance-Corporal Ness?”