“Tchkk!” clucked McCullough wearily.  “What is the use of arguin’ with an old sweat like him? . . .  Hardy’ll be happy enough in Hell, so long as he can have his bloomin’ old blackguard of a parrot along with him.  If he can’t there will be a pretty fuss.”

“Bear up, Hardy!” comforted George.  “When you’ve got that ‘quiff’ of yours all fussed up, and those new ‘square-pushin’’ dress-pants on you’re some ‘hot dog.’ . . .  Now, if I thought you could ‘talk pretty’ and behave yourself I’d—­”

The old soldier grinned diabolically.  “Sorjint?” he broke in mincingly “c’n I fall out an’ tork t’ me sister?—­garn, Reddy! wipe orf yer chin! . . . though if I did ‘appen t’ ‘ave a sister she might s’y th’ sime fing abaht me, now, as she might s’y abaht you—­to a lydy-fren’ o’ ’er’s, p’raps. . . .”

“Say what?” demanded George incautiously.

Hardy chuckled again, “‘Ere comes one o’ them Mounted Pleecemen, me dear,—­orl comb an’ spurs,—­mark time in front there. . . !” And he emitted an imitation of a barnyard cackle.

McCullough shot a glance at Redmond’s face.  “Can th’ grief” he remarked unsympathetically, “you’re fly enough usually . . . but you fairly asked for it that time.”

Hardy spat into a cuspidor with long-range accuracy.  He beamed with cheerful malevolence awhile upon his tormentors; then, uplifting a cracked falsetto in an unmusical wail, to the tune of “London Bridge is Falling Down,” assured them that—­

  “Old soweljers never die, never die, never die,
  Old soweljers never—­”

With infinite mockery Redmond’s boyish voice struck in—­

  “Young soldiers wish they would, wish they—­”

“’Ere!” remonstrated Hardy darkly, “chack it, Reddy! . . .  You know wot ‘appens t’ them as starts in, a-guyin’ old soweljers?—­eh?—­Well, I tell yer now!—­worse’n wot ‘appened t’ them fresh kids in th’ Bible wot mocked th’ old blowke abaht ’is bald ’ead.”

“Isch ga bibble!  I don’t care!” bawled the abandoned George; “can’t be much worse than doing ‘straight duty’ round Barracks, here!—­same thing, day in, day out—­go and look at the ‘duty detail’ board—­Regimental Number—­Constable Redmond, ’prisoner’s escort’—­punching gangs of prisoners around all day long, on little rotten jobs about Barracks—­and ‘night guard’ catching you every third night and—­”

“Oyez! oyez! oyez! you good men of this—­”

“Oh, yes! you can come the funny man all right, Mac—­you’ve got a ‘staff’ job.  Straight duty don’t affect you.  Why don’t they shove me out on detachment again, and give me another chance to do real police work? . . .  I tell you I’m fed up—­properly. . . .  I wish I was out of the blooming Force—­I’m not ‘wedded’ to it, like you.”

“’Ear, ’ear!” chimed in Hardy, with a sort of miserable heartiness.  McSporran’s contribution was merely a dour Scotch grin.  In the moment’s silence that followed a tremendous bawling squall of wind rocked the building to its very foundations.  The back-draught of it sucked open the door, and, borne upon its wings, the roaring, full-chorused burst of a popular barrack-room chantey floated up the stairs from the canteen below—­