Man is fire, and Woman is tow,
  And the Devil, he comes and begins to blow—­

the same old miserable business the world’s fed up with.  Since then seems I’ve kind of made a mess of things.  Burke Slavin’s about right—­his estimate of me.”  He sighed with bitter, gloomy retrospection.  “I’ve always had a queer, intolerant sort of temperament.  If I’d lived in the days of the Indian Mutiny I guess I’d have been in ’Hodson’s Horse’.” (Redmond started, remembering his curious dream.) “He was a man after my own heart,” Yorke continued slowly, “resourceful, slashing sort of beggar . . . he ruffled it with a high hand.  Bold and game as Sherman, or Paul Jones, but as ruthless as Graham of Claverhouse.  He put the ever-lasting fear into the rebels of Oude—­something like Cromwell did in Ireland.  My old Governor served through the Mutiny—­he’s told me stories of him.  My God!”

He drew his fur coat closer round him.  “Well!”—­Redmond watched the sombre profile—­“as I was saying . . .  I ‘muckered’. . . .  Since then, with the years, I guess I’ve been climbing down the ladder of illusions till I’m right in the stoke-hole, and Old Nick seems to grin and whisper:  ‘As you were! my cashiered Sub.—­As you were!’ every time I chuck a brace and try to climb up again.  How’s that for a bit of cheap cynicism?”—­the low, bitter laugh was not good to hear—­“Man!”—­the brooding eyes narrowed—­“I’ve sure plumbed the depths—­knocking around, with the right to live.  Port Said, Buenos Aires, Shanghai. . . .  I’ve certainly travelled.  Some day I’ll throw the book at you.  Now—­substance and ambition gone by the board long ago, and mighty little left of principle I guess—­I am—­what I am—­everything except a prodigal, or a remittance-man—­I never worried them at Home—­that way. . . .”

He spoke with a sort of reckless earnestness that moved his hearer more than that individual cared to show.  Redmond felt it was useless to offer mere conventional sympathy in a case like this.  He did the next best thing possible—­he remained silently attentive and let the other run on.

“You take three men now—­stationed in the same detachment,” resumed Yorke wearily, “by gum! they’re thrown together mighty close when you come to think of it.  It’s different to the Post, where there’s a crowd.  Life’s too short to start in explaining minutely just what that difference is.  Fact remains! . . . to get along and pull together they’ve got to like each other—­have something in common—­give and take.  Otherwise the situation becomes d——­d trying, and trouble soon starts in the family.”

“By what divine right I should consider myself qualified to—­to—­Oh! shut up, you young idiot! . . .”  Redmond, forehead pressed into the speaker’s shoulder, giggled hysterically in spite of himself—­“Shut up! d’you hear? or I’ll knock your silly block off!”

The two bodies shook, with their convulsive merriment.  “You can’t do it! old thing,” came George’s smothered rejoinder, “and you know darned well you can’t—­now! . . .  Go on, you bloomin’ Hodson!—­proceed!”