d--train, run, use the clubs."

"I have," cried Brumpton, "for months; but I only get worse."

"Don't sleep quite so much, then."

"Oh, dear!" groaned the sergeant; "I've cut myself down to five hours,
and surely that oughtn't to be too much. It's no good, Smithson--not a
bit! If I was to be shut up in a lump of coal, like a toad, I should go
on getting fat till the coal split up the back, like one of my jackets."

"Well, it does seem hard," said Dick.

"No, sir; soft--horridly soft," said the sergeant, and he rose with a
sigh. "I've felt sometimes that if I get my discharge I shall make an
end of myself."

"Nonsense."

"Oh, I shall. I've often thought of drowning myself, after being
laughed at, but I couldn't do that."

"I should think not."

"Fat would be against me there, Smithson; I should only float."

The idea of the plump sergeant bobbing about, half out of the water,
like a cork-float, excited Dick's laughing muscles; but he saw how
genuine was the distress of the poor fellow standing before him, and he
forbore, knowing as he did that a good warm heart beat beneath that
coating of fat and that Brumpton was a clever officer and devoted to his
work.

"I wish I could help you, sergeant," said Dick, at last.

"So do I, my lad; but you can't."

"Have you tried the doctor?"

"Yes--yes," said Brumpton, dolefully.

"What did he advise?"

"Nothing! Laughed at me."

Dick sat, tapping the table with his penholder.

"I know how it will be," continued the sergeant. "I shall be pitched
out of the regiment, and then I shall begin to get thin from misery and
despair."

"Going?" said Dick.

"Yes; I'll just walk round to the canteen and get in the scales again.
I try 'em every day, hoping to find 'em moving the wrong way, but I
never can. I was seventeen stone thirteen yesterday; next week I shall
be eighteen stone, and they can't keep a man like that in the army."

"Stop! Look here!" cried Dick, so earnestly that the sergeant plumped
down again into his seat, gazing wildly into the young man's face, ready
to grasp at any straw to save himself from being drowned in his misery.

"Yes, yes," he panted; and he began to wipe his big, smooth face. "Got
an idea?"

"I think I could cure you, Mr Brumpton."

"Could you? How? I'll take anything. I don't mind how nasty."

"I've got an idea that I think will work, and, if it doesn't take down
your fat, it would keep you from having to leave the re