"Bother it! what shall we do?" cried Valentine.

"I should think you'd better play with your tin soldiers," answered
Helen, laughing. "They always seem to keep you good."

Valentine hardly liked this allusion to his miniature army being made
in the hearing of his older schoolfellow, for boys at Melchester School
were supposed to be above finding amusement in toys of any kind. The
latter, however, pricked up his ears, and threw down the book he had
been reading.

"Who's got any tin soldiers?" he asked. "Let's see 'em." The boxes
were produced. "My eye!" continued Jack, turning out the contents,
"what a heap you've got! I should like to set them out and have a
battle. And here are two pea-shooters; just the thing!"

"You don't mean to say you're fond of tin soldiers, Jack?" said Aunt
Mabel. "Why, you're much too old, I should have thought, for anything
of that kind."

"I'm not," answered the boy; "I love tin soldiers, and anything to do
with war. Come on, Val, we'll divide the men and have a fight."

The challenge was accepted. There was an empty room upstairs, and on
the floor of this the opposing forces were drawn up, and a desperate
conflict ensued. The troops were certainly a motley crew; some were
running, some marching, and some were standing still; some had their
rifles at the "present," and some at the "slope;" but what they lacked
in drill and discipline, they made up in their steadiness when under
fire, and Jack showed as much skill and resource in handling them as
did their rightful commander. He set out his men on some thin pieces
of board, which could be moved forward up the room, it having been
agreed that he should be allowed to stand and deliver his fire from the
spot reached by his advancing line of battle. Each group of these
tag-rag-and-bobtail metal warriors was dignified by the name of some
famous regiment. Here was the "Black Watch," and there the "Coldstream
Guards;" while this assembly of six French Zouaves, a couple of
red-coats, a bugler, and a headless mounted officer on a three-legged
horse, was the old 57th Foot--the "Die-Hards"--ready to exhibit once
more the same stubborn courage and unflinching fortitude as they had
displayed at Albuera. Valentine held a position strengthened by
redoubts constructed out of dominoes, match-boxes, pocket-knives, and
other odds and ends. They were certainly curious fortifications; yet
the nursery often mimics in miniature the sterner re