ough I would do so if I thought the payment
would in the slightest way inconvenience you. But as you say that now
I am away it will make something like that sum difference in your
expenses, I must of course let you do as you like, and can only thank
you very heartily for it. But I could really have got on very well
without it. I fancy that a good many men in the regiment have nothing
but their pay, and as they manage very well there is no reason I could
not manage too.

"Of course in war times things are not kept up so expensively as they
were before, and lots of men get commissions who would not have done
so when the army was only half its present size, and was considered as
a gentlemanly profession instead of a real fighting machine. However,
as you say, it is a great deal more pleasant having nine shilling a
day to live on instead of four and sixpence.

"I am getting on capitally here. Of course there is a lot of drill,
and it is as much as I can do not to laugh sometimes, the sergeant,
who is a fierce little man, gets into such wild rages over our
blunders.

"I say our blunders, for of course Stapleton and I are drilled with
the recruits. However, I think that in another week I shall be over
that, and shall then begin to learn my work as an officer. They are a
jolly set of fellows here, always up to some fun or other. I always
thought when fellows got to be men they were rather serious, but it
seems to me that there is ever so much more fun here among them than
there was at school. Of course newcomers get worried a little just as
they do at school. I got off very well; because, you see, what with
school and the privateer I have learned to take things good
temperedly, and when fellows see that you are as ready for fun as they
are they soon give up bothering you.

"Stapleton has had a lot more trouble; because, you see, he will look
at things seriously. I think he is getting a little better now; but he
used to get quite mad at first, and of course that made fellows ever
so much worse. He would find his door screwed up when he went back
after mess; and as soon as they found that he was awfully particular
about his boots, they filled them all full of water one night. Then
some one got a ladder and threw a lot of crackers into his bedroom in
the middle of the night, and Stapleton came rushing down in his
night-shirt with his sword drawn, swearing he would kill somebody.

"Of course I have done all I can to get them