’But as long as a regiment has no say as to who joins it, it’s bound to rag,’ Infant began.  ‘Why—­why, they varnished me when I joined!’ He squirmed at the thought of it.

’Don’t be owls!  We ain’t discussing principles!  We’ve got to save the court of inquiry if we can,’ said Stalky.

Five minutes later—­at 7.45 to be precise—­we four sat down to such a dinner as, I hold, only The Infant’s cook can produce, with wines worthy of pontifical banquets.  A man in the extremity of rage and injured dignity is precisely like a typhoid patient.  He asks no questions, accepts what is put before him, and babbles in one key—­very often of trifles.  But food and drink are the very best of drugs.  I think it was Heidsieck Dry Monopole ’92—­Stalky as usual stuck to Burgundy—­that began to unlock Mr. Wontner’s heart behind my shirt-front.  Me he snubbed throughout, after the Oxford manner, because I had seen him in the sack, and he did not intend me to presume; but to Stalky and The Infant, while I admired the set of my dinner-jacket across his shoulders, he made his plans of revenge very clear indeed.  He had even sketched out some of the paragraphs that were to appear in the papers, and if Stalky had allowed me to speak, I would have told him that they were rather neatly phrased.

‘You ought to be able to get whackin’ damages out of ’em, into the bargain,’ said Stalky, after Mr. Wontner had outlined his position legally.

‘My de-ah sir,’ Mr. Wontner applied himself to his glass, ’it isn’t a matter that gentlemen usually discuss, but, I assure you, we Wontners’—­he waved a well-kept hand—­’do not stand in any need of filthy lucre.’  In the next three minutes, we learned exactly what his father was worth, which, as he pointed out, was a trifle no man of the world dwelt on.  Stalky envied aloud, and I delivered my first kick at The Infant’s ankle.  Thence we drifted to education, and the Average Army Man, and the desolating vacuity—­I remember these words—­of Army Society, notably among its womenkind.  It appeared there was some sort of narrow convention in the Army against mentioning a woman’s name at Mess.  We were much surprised at this—­Stalky would not let me express my surprise—­but we took it from Mr. Wontner, who said we might, that it was so.  Next he touched on Colonels of the old school, and their cognisance of tactics.  Not that he himself pretended to any skill in tactics, but after three years at the ’Varsity—­none of us had had a ’Varsity education—­a man insensibly contracted the habit of clear thinking.  At least, he could automatically co-ordinate his ideas, and the jealousy of these muddle-headed Colonels was inconceivable.  We would understand that it was his duty to force on the retirement of his Colonel, who had been in the conspiracy against him; to make his Adjutant resign or exchange; and to give the half-dozen childish subalterns who had vexed his dignity a chance to retrieve themselves in other corps—­West