uneasy and worried
about the Wife ever since that awful business three years ago--when--I
nearly lost her. Can you wonder?

CAPT. M. Oh, a shell never falls twice in the same place. You've paid
your toll to misfortune--why should your Wife be picked out more than
anybody else's?

CAPT. G. I can talk just as reasonably as you can, but you don't
understand--you don't understand. And then there's The Butcha. Deuce
knows where the Ayah takes him to sit in the evening! He has a bit of a
cough. Haven't you noticed it?

CAPT. M. Bosh! The Brigadier's jumping out of his skin with pure
condition. He's got a muzzle like a rose-leaf and the chest of a
two-year-old. What's demoralized you?

CAPT. G. Funk. That's the long and the short of it. Funk!

CAPT. M. But what is there to funk?

CAPT. G. Everything. It's ghastly.

CAPT. M. Ah! I see.

You don't want to fight, And by Jingo when we do, You've got the kid,
you've got the Wife, You've got the money, too.

That's about the case, eh?

CAPT. G. I suppose that's it. But it's not br myself. It's because of
them. At least I think it is.

CAPT. M. Are you sure? Looking at the matter in a cold-blooded light,
the Wife is provided for even if you were wiped out tonight. She has
an ancestral home to go to, money and the Brigadier to carry on the
illustrious name.

CAPT. G. Then it is for myself or because they are part of me. You don't
see it. My life's so good, so pleasant, as it is, that I want to make it
quite safe. Can't you understand?

CAPT. M. Perfectly. "Shelter-pit for the Off'cer's charger," as they say
in the Line.

CAPT. G. And I have everything to my hand to make it so. I'm sick of the
strain and the worry for their sakes out here; and there isn't a single
real difficulty to prevent my dropping it altogether. It'll only cost
me--Jack, I hope you'll never know the shame that I've been going
through for the past six months.

CAPT. M. Hold on there! I don't wish to be told. Every man has his moods
and tenses sometimes.

CAPT. G. (Laughing bitterly.) Has he? What do you call craning over to
see where your near-fore lands?

CAPT. M. In my case it means that I have been on the Considerable Bend,
and have come to parade with a Head and a Hand. It passes in three
strides.

CAPT. G. (Lowering voice.) It never passes with me, Jack. I'm always
thinking about it. Phil Gadsby funking a fall on parade! Sweet picture,
isn't it! Draw it for me.

CAPT. M. (Gravely.)