om
left tae right across the square, at five hundred yairds_"

--they are really about fifteen yards away, covered with
confusion--"_five roonds, fire!_"

But as yet they have discharged no shots from their rifles. It has all
been make-believe, with dummy cartridges, and fictitious ranges, and
snapping triggers. To be quite frank, they are getting just a little
tired of musketry training--forgetting for the moment that a soldier
who cannot use his rifle is merely an expense to his country and a
free gift to the enemy. But the sight of Bobby Little's art gallery
cheers them up. They contemplate the picture with childlike interest.
It resembles nothing so much as one of those pleasing but imaginative
posters by the display of which our Railway Companies seek to attract
the tourist to the less remunerative portions of their systems.

"What for is the wee felly gaun' tae show us puctures?"

Thus Private Mucklewame. A pundit in the rear rank answers him.

"Yon's Gairmany."

"Gairmany ma auntie!" retorts Mucklewame. "There's no chumney-stalks
in Gairmany."

"Maybe no; but there's wundmulls. See the wundmull there--on yon wee
knowe!"

"There a pit-held!" exclaims another voice. This homely spectacle is
received with an affectionate sigh. Until two months ago more than
half the platoon had never been out of sight of at least half a dozen.

"See the kirk, in ablow the brae!" says some one else, in a pleased
voice. "It has a nock in the steeple."

"I hear they Gairmans send signals wi' their kirk-nocks," remarks
Private M'Micking, who, as one of the Battalion signallers--or
"buzzers," as the vernacular has it, in imitation of the buzzing
of the Morse instrument--regards himself as a sort of junior Staff
Officer. "They jist semaphore with the haunds of the nock--"

"I wonder," remarks the dreamy voice of Private M'Leary, the humorist
of the platoon, "did ever a Gairman buzzer pit the ba' through his ain
goal in a fitba' match?"

This irrelevant reference to a regrettable incident of the previous
Saturday afternoon is greeted with so much laughter that Bobby Little,
who has at length fixed his picture in position, whips round.

"Less talking there!" he announces severely, "or I shall have to stand
you all at attention!"

There is immediate silence--there is nothing the matter with Bobby's
discipline--and the outraged M'Micking has to content himself with
a homicidal glare in the direction of M'Leary, who is now ha