Before he could answer the bombardment of questions about Bobby the door was opened again.  The men dropped their knives and forks and stood at attention.  The officer of the day was making the rounds of the forty or fifty such rooms in the barracks to inquire of the soldiers if their dinner was satisfactory.  He recognized at once the attractive little Skye that had taken the eyes of the men on the march, and asked about him.  Sergeant Scott explained that Bobby had no owner.  He was living, by permission, in Greyfriars kirkyard, guarding the grave of a long-dead, humble master, and was fed by the landlord of the dining-rooms near the gate.  If the little dog took a fancy to garrison life, and the regiment to him, he thought Mr. Traill, who had the best claim upon him, might consent to his transfer to the Castle.  After orders, at sunset, he would take Bobby down to the restaurant himself.

“I wish you good luck, Sergeant.”  The officer whistled, and Bobby leaped upon him and off again, and indulged in many inconsequent friskings.  “Before you take him home fetch him over to the officers’ mess at dinner.  It is guest night, and he is sure to interest the gentlemen.  A loyal little creature who has guarded his dead master’s grave for more than eight years deserves to have a toast drunk to him by the officers of the Queen.  But it’s an extraordinary story, and it doesn’t sound altogether probable.  Jolly little beggar!” He patted Bobby cordially on the side, and went out.

The news of his advent and fragments of his story spread so quickly through the barracks that mess after mess swarmed down from the upper moors and out into the roadway to see Bobby.  Private McLean stood in the door, smoking a cutty pipe, and grinning with pride in the merry little ruffian of a terrier, who met the friendly advances of the soldiers more than half-way.  Bobby’s guardian would have liked very well to have sat before the canteen in the sun and gossiped about his small charge.  However, in the sergeant’s sleeping-quarters above the mess-room, he had the little dog all to himself, and Bobby had the liveliest interest in the boxes and pots, brushes and sponges, and in the processes of polishing, burnishing, and pipe-claying a soldier’s boots and buttons and belts.  As he worked at his valeting, the man kept time with his foot to rude ballads that he sang in such a hissing Celtic that Bobby barked, scandalized by a dialect that had been music in the ears of his ancestors.  At that Private McLean danced a Highland fling for him, and wee Bobby came near bursting with excitement.  When the sergeant came up to make a magnificent toilet for tea and for the evening in town, the soldier expressed himself with enthusiasm.

“He iss a deffle of a dog, sir!”