ut it. He looked
admiringly on the soldier and so lovingly at the steak, that it almost
seemed as if he wished he could be cut into such delicious morsels and
eaten by so happy a man. What thoughts passed through his mind no one
but a dreamer could tell; and this is what I saw passing through the mind
of Wurzel.

"O, what a life! what grub! what jollyness! no turmut oeing; no
dung-cart; no edgin and ditchin; no five o'clock in the mornin; no
master; no bein sweared at; no up afore the magistrates; no ungriness;
rump steaks and inguns; whiskey and water and bacca; if I didn't like
that air Polly Sweetlove, danged if I wouldn't go for a soger to-morrer!"

Then said Joe, very deferentially and as if he were afraid of being up
afore the magistrate, "If you please, sir, med I have a bit o' that there
bacca?"

"Of course," said the Sergeant, tossing his pouch; "certainly; help
yourself."

Joe's heart was softened more and more towards the military, which he had
hitherto regarded, from all he could hear, as a devil's own trap to catch
Sabbath breakers and disobedient to parents.

And methought, in my dream, I never saw men who were not partakers of a
feast enjoy it more than the onlookers of that military repast.

Then said Harry,--

"Well, Sergeant, I'm well-nigh tired of my life, and I've come here to
enlist."

"Just wait a bit," said the Sergeant; "I'm not a man to do things in a
hurry. I never allow a man to enlist, if I know it, in Her Majesty's
service, honourable and jolly as it is, without asking him to think about
it."

"Hear, hear!" said Lazyman; "that's good, I likes that; don't be in a
hurry, lad."

"Hear, hear!" says Outofwork, "don't jump into a job too soon, yer medn't
like it."

"Hear, hear!" says the Boardman, "walk round a-bit."

"But," said Harry, "I have considered it. I've just had education enough
to prevent my getting a living, and not enough to make a man of me: I've
tried everything and nobody wants me."

"Then," said Sergeant Goodtale, "do you think the Queen only wants them
that nobody else'll have. I can tell you that ain't the Queen of
England's way. It might do for Rooshia or Germany, or them countries,
but not for Old England. It's a free country. I think, lads, I'm
right--"

Here there was tremendous hammering on the table by way of assent and
applause; amidst which Joe could be observed thumping his hard fist with
as much vehemence as if he had got a County Magistrat