mp, and
have talked with the lads there, can testify to this by personal
experience. As I have before stated, Tom found the work hard, the
discipline strict, and the duties many; at the same time everything was
so well arranged and the spirit of such good-fellowship prevailed that
thousands of young men were under much more healthy conditions, both
physically and morally, than they were at home. Indeed, many told me
that they would never care for the cramped life of the office, the
workshop, and the factory again, after the free open-air life of a
soldier.

Tom, who had been quick to learn his duties and to master his drill,
especially after he had--as he termed it to me--"been disgraced, and
turned over a new leaf," found the work easy and pleasant.

"Ay," said Tom to me, "it's very funny."

"What?" I asked.

"The way these greenhorns try to learn their drill."

"How's that?" I asked.

"Why, yesterday a chap came up to me wi' tears in his eyes. I asked
him what wur the matter, and he said, 'Ay, I have not got brains for
it.' 'Brains for what?' I asked. 'Brains for this 'ere drill: a man
needs to have a head like Shakespeare to get hold on it. That there
formin' fours now: I have tried, and I have tried, and I have better
tried, but I can't get a fair grip on it. Ay, I shall have to write a
letter to the Colonel and tell him I shall have to give it up.'"

Tom laughed gleefully as he spoke. "Why, it's as easy as winking,
sir," he said; "but some chaps are thick-headed, you know--in fact they
have no heads at all, they've just got turnips stuck on top of their
shoulders. I fair pity the young officers sometimes when they are
trying to knock these chaps into shape. But they are doing it fine;
and fellows who came a few weeks ago, slack and shuffling, are now
straight and smart. It's wonderful what a bit of drilling does."

"And do you find the Y.M.C.A. helpful down here, Tom?" I asked.

"Helpful, sir! I don't know what we should do without it. You see
it's different here from what it is in big towns where the men are in
billets. We're away, as you may say, from any town that's sizeable,
and there's no place to go to of an evening, except the public-house;
and if the Y.M.C.A. hadn't been here we should have nothing to do but
fool around. But the work they're doing here is just champion. They
have entertainments every night, and if you don't feel like going to
them, there's a room where you can rea