“It seems, sir,” Gentleman Fox was saying, “that we’re all agreed to guilty, except yourself.  If you will allow me, I don’t see how you can go behind what the prisoner himself admitted.”

Thus brought up to the very guns, Mr. Bosengate, red in the face, thrust his hands deep into the side pockets of his tunic, and, staring straight before him, said: 

“Very well; on condition we recommend him to mercy.”

“What do you say, gentlemen; shall we recommend him to mercy?”

“’Ear, ’ear!” burst from the commercial traveller, and from the chemist came the murmur: 

“No harm in that.”

“Well, I think there is.  They shoot deserters at the front, and we let this fellow off.  I’d hang the cur.”

Mr. Bosengate stared at that little wire-haired brute.  “Haven’t you any feeling for others?” he wanted to say.  “Can’t you see that this poor devil suffers tortures?” But the sheer impossibility of doing this before ten other men brought a slight sweat out on his face and hands; and in agitation he smote the table a blow with his fist.  The effect was instantaneous.  Everybody looked at the wire-haired man, as if saying:  “Yes, you’ve gone a bit too far there!” The “little brute” stood it for a moment, then muttered surlily: 

“Well, commend ’im to mercy if you like; I don’t care.”

“That’s right; they never pay any attention to it,” said the grey-haired man, winking heartily.  And Mr. Bosengate filed back with the others into court.

But when from the jury box his eyes fell once more on the hare-eyed figure in the dock, he had his worst moment yet.  Why should this poor wretch suffer so—­for no fault, no fault; while he, and these others, and that snapping counsel, and the Caesar-like judge up there, went off to their women and their homes, blithe as bees, and probably never thought of him again?  And suddenly he was conscious of the judge’s voice: 

“You will go back to your regiment, and endeavour to serve your country with better spirit.  You may thank the jury that you are not sent to prison, and your good fortune that you were not at the front when you tried to commit this cowardly act.  You are lucky to be alive.”

A policeman pulled the little soldier by the arm; his drab figure with eyes fixed and lustreless, passed down and away.  From his very soul Mr. Bosengate wanted to lean out and say:  “Cheer up, cheer up!  I understand.”

It was nearly ten o’clock that evening before he reached home, motoring back from the route march.  His physical tiredness was abated, for he had partaken of a snack and a whisky and soda at the hotel; but mentally he was in a curious mood.  His body felt appeased, his spirit hungry.  Tonight he had a yearning, not for his wife’s kisses, but for her understanding.  He wanted to go to her and say:  “I’ve learnt a lot to-day-found out things I never thought of.  Life’s a