dge of
the sap, the ring of the Prussian's revolver as it moved up towards his
face.

What happened, happened quickly: most of these things are touch and go.
The bullet whizzed past his face into the night--his left hand hit the
revolver just in time; and even as the bullet went wide his right hand
struck sideways with the knife. It sank into the Prussian's neck; he
felt a rush of something warm and sticky, and then he was grabbed from
behind.

"Quick," muttered Shorty in his ear, "hop it; hop it like hell. I'll
guide you."

Blinded and dazed by the blast of the revolver, he stumbled
mechanically after his leader. "Into this shell hole for a moment,"
whispered Bill imperatively, as a machine gun let drive with a few
rounds which passed over them like a flight of cockchafers. "Now come
on. Home this trip, my boy--I didn't know that swab was there. . . ."

"I killed him, Bill," said Reginald, half an hour later, as he sat
rubbing his eyes on the fire step of their own trenches to get the
stinging of the cordite out.

"You done well, son," said Bill; "an' if any one doubts it--show 'em
your hand."

By the light of a match Reggie looked at it, and he shuddered. It
bore, as Bill implied, the proof of death.

He was silent too awhile; the first hot-blooded one is more rattling to
the nerves than a stranger three hundred yards away. Then a great
thought struck him, and he cursed.

"I've left my knife in his neck, Bill. What a blasted idiot!"

V

A PROJECT AND SOME SIDE-ISSUES

It is quite possible that there are some who, having read thus far,
will consider that the education of Reginald Simpkins as a soldier was
now complete. Transformed from a dreadful being who cut up silks and
things and discoursed on the merits of what I understand is known as
lingerie, he had become a man: a man with a quick hand and a sure eye,
a man who had met one of his kind in fair fight and killed him. In his
mind there had been born pride--the right sort of pride. Not the
spurious article which had passed for it at Mogg's--that unpleasant
type of conceit of which pimples and a high collar are the outward and
visible sign. No, not that at all. He had cast that off with his
frock coat, and in its place had grown the inherent pride which is the
birthright of a _man_.

It was just because the metamorphosis had been so complete, and the
growth had been so rapid, that his education was by no means finished.
It had on