Our Soldier Boy

that! I thought you'd got something sensible in your head."

"So I have," said Joe gruffly, "on'y you're in such a hurry. I should say nothing to nobody, and go on just as if he warn't here."

"Oh, Joe, dear, would you?"

"Yes, that's what I should say. We could manage right enough, and if at last the Colonel should come with: `Hallo there! What boy's that?'-- why, we could tell him then, and if he said: `Send him away'--"

"Yes, and what then, Joe?" cried Mrs Corporal excitedly.

"Why then," said Joe, "we should have to obey orders."

"Ah, and he mightn't say that, Joe, as he's such a nice little fellow."

"Course, he mightn't," replied Joe.

"Hah!" ejaculated Mrs Corporal Beane, and she said no more. But at the next halting-place she began to think: and the result of her thinking was that she got hold of an old uniform suit and by working very hard every time the regiment halted she contrived to cut the suit down till it roughly fitted the little invalid, brai