ing his next parade and being ignominiously returned to his
company.

After an unsuccessful application for employment as a "buzzer," or
signaller, Dunshie made trial of the regimental transport, where there
was a shortage of drivers. He had strong hopes that in this way he
would attain to permanent carriage exercise. But he was quickly
undeceived. Instead of being offered a seat upon the box of a G.S.
waggon, he was bidden to walk behind the same, applying the brake when
necessary, for fourteen miles. The next day he spent cleaning stables,
under a particularly officious corporal. On the third, he was
instructed in the art of grooming a mule. On the fourth, he was left
to perform this feat unaided, and the mule, acting under extreme
provocation, kicked him in the stomach. On the fifth day he was
returned to his company.

But Mecca was at hand. That very morning Dunshie's company commander
received the following ukase from headquarters:--

_Officers commanding Companies will render to the Orderly Room without
fail, by 9 A.M. to-morrow, the name of one man qualified to act as
chiropodist to the Company_.

Major Kemp scratched his nose in a dazed fashion, and looked over his
spectacles at his Quartermaster-Sergeant.

"What in thunder will they ask for next?" he growled. "Have we got any
tame chiropodists in the company, Rae?"

Quartermaster-Sergeant Rae turned over the Company roll.

"There is no--no--no man of that profession here, sirr," he reported,
after scanning the document. "But," he added optimistically, "there is
a machine-fitter and a glass-blower. Will I warn one of them?"

"I think we had better call for a volunteer first," said Major Kemp
tactfully.

Accordingly, that afternoon upon parade, Platoon commanders were
bidden to hold a witch hunt, and smell out a chiropodist. But the
enterprise terminated almost immediately; for Private Dunshie,
caressing his injured abdomen in Number Three Platoon, heard the
invitation, and quickly stepped forward.

"So you are a chiropodist as well as everything else, Dunshie!" said
Ayling incredulously.

"That's right, sirr," assented Dunshie politely.

"Are you a professional?"

"No exactly that, sirr," was the modest reply.

"You just make a hobby of it?"

"Just that, sirr."

"Have you had much experience?"

"No that much."

"But you feel capable of taking on the job?"

"I do, sirr."

"You seem quite eager about it."

"Yes, sirr," said Dunshie, w