services will have their hands full, or I shall be much surprised. At
present matters point to a campaign on the Danube, while our fleet holds
the Dardanelles and the Black Sea; but for all I know Russia may be
invaded. In that case Sebastopol is likely to be the port fixed upon
for attack. Situated in the Crimea, it is an immense naval and military
arsenal, which in itself is a constant menace to Turkey. Look at the
map once more and note the position of the Danube and of Sebastopol, you
will then more readily see the truth of my words."

"Don't matter to me where it is, sir!" exclaimed Tony bluntly; "if it's
war we'll fight and lick the beggars, see if we don't; and if it comes
to invasion, or whatever yer calls it, well, all the better, I say.
'Tain't nearly such good fun sticking behind stone walls and keeping
fellers out as it is rushing forts and such like things, and turning the
garrison out with the end of a bay'net. That's the boy for 'em. Give
me and all my mates a good half-yard of steel at the end of our guns,
and see if we don't make it warm for the Russians. We'll do as well as
the Froggies at any rate."

"That you will, I am sure," laughed Mr Shelton, patting him on the
back. "Fancy how strange it is that we who have always been fighting
with France, who is, as I might say, our natural enemy, should now be
side by side with her, and in all probability will soon be fighting for
the same object. It will lead to tremendous scenes of emulation, for no
British soldier will care to allow a Frenchman to beat him at anything."

"I should think not, indeed," Phil snorted. "There was a chap at the
school I first went to who was a regular Froggy. His people had come to
England to save him from conscription; it would have been the making of
him, for he was a regular donkey, conceited and all that; curled his
hair and put scent on his handkerchief. Pah! How we disliked that
fellow!"

"It sounds as though you had had something to do with him," said Mr
Shelton, with a quizzical smile, "for we were saying that no Englishman
would suffer a Frenchman to beat him."

"Oh--er, yes, there was something like that!" Phil replied, with
reddened cheeks. "You see the beggar got so uppish and disagreeable
there was no doing anything with him; then, when I called him Froggy, in
pure jest, he threw a stump at me, and caught me a crack on the head. I
didn't like that, and--er--"

"Yes, you did what?" asked Mr She