it is. I prefer the cat, I
must say. She isn't quite so whiff. What are you goin' to do, Beetle?"

"_Je vais gloater. Je vais gloater tout le blessed afternoon. Jamais
j'ai gloate' comme je gloaterai aujourd'hui. Nous bunkerons aux_
bunkers."

And it seemed good to them so to do.

Down in the basement, where the gas flickers and the boots stand in
racks, Richards, amid his blacking-brushes, held forth to Oke of the
Common-room, Gumbly of the dining-halls, and fair Lena of the laundry.

"Yiss. Her were in a shockin' staate an' condition. Her nigh made me
sick, I tal 'ee. But I rowted un out, and I rowted un out, an' I made
all shipshape, though her smelt like to bilges."

"Her died mousin', I reckon, poor thing," said Lena.

"Then her moused different to any made cat o' God's world, Lena. I up
with the top-board, an' she were lying on her back, an' I turned un
ovver with the brume-handle, an' 'twas her back was all covered with
the plaster from 'twixt the lathin'. Yiss, I tal 'ee. An' under her
head there lay, like, so's to say, a little pillow o' plaster druv up
in front of her by raison of her slidin' along on her back. No cat niver
went mousin' on her back, Lena. Some one had shoved her along right
underneath, so far as they could shove un. Cats don't make theyselves
pillows for to die on. Shoved along, she were, when she was settin' for
to be cold, laike."

"Oh, yeou'm too clever to live, Fatty. Yeou go get wed an' taught some
sense," said Lena, the affianced of Gumbly.

"Larned a little 'fore iver some maidens was born. Sarved in the Queen's
Navy, I have, where yeou'm taught to use your eyes. Yeou go 'tend your
own business, Lena."

"Do 'ee mean what you'm been tellin' us?" said Oke.

"Ask me no questions, I'll give 'ee no lies. Bullet-hole clane thru from
side to side, an' tu heart-ribs broke like withies. I seed un when I
turned un ovver. They're clever, oh, they'm clever, but they'm not too
clever for old Richards! 'Twas on the born tip o' my tongue to tell,
tu, but... he said us niver washed, he did. Let his dom boys call us
'stinkers,' he did. Sarve un dom well raight, I say!"

Richards spat on a fresh boot and fell to his work, chuckling.

THE IMPRESSIONISTS.

They had dropped into the chaplain's study for a Saturday night
smoke---all four house-masters--and the three briars and the one cigar
reeking in amity proved the Rev. John Gillett's good generalship. Since
the discovery of the