?"

"Often, sir; also Germany."

"Know the lingo?"

"Passably."

"That is, you can understand what a Frenchman or a German says?"

"Everything, sir."

"Good! I'll speak to my Colonel right away. But let's strike while
the iron is hot. You came here to enlist as a private, you say. In
that case let's get through the medical business at once."

"I'm all right, sir."

"That must be proved. You are big enough, Heaven knows! Six feet
high, aren't you?"

"Just a trifle above that."

"And forty inches around the chest, I should think. Come this way."

A few minutes later Bob had been overhauled by a doctor.

"Sound as a bell," was the doctor's verdict.

Next he had to submit himself to an oculist, who tested Bob's eyes.

"All right?" asked Captain Pringle, who was present during the
examination, and told the doctors that Bob was an old friend of his.

"Should be a good shot," replied the oculist. "He's all right."

"Good!" said Captain. "How are your teeth, Nancarrow?"

Bob opened his mouth with a laugh. He was in high spirits.

"They look all right," said Captain Pringle; "but you must be properly
examined. A week or two ago hundreds of fellows were taken on without
any real examination at all. Only yesterday, when I was down at S----,
I was talking with a doctor there, and he told me that a fellow had
actually been passed who had a weak spine, and wore instruments to
support his back. Of course he was sent home at once, but it shows
how, under the new conditions, things were conducted in a loose
fashion. However, that's all over now. We are taking only sound men.
Here you are."

Bob was quickly dismissed by the dentist, and pronounced "all right."

"I suppose you are ready at once?" asked Pringle.

"Give me a couple of hours to settle up about my chambers, and a few
things like that, and I shall be ready, sir."

"Right. Of course there are the papers to sign and all that kind of
thing, but that's nothing. Be here at three o'clock this afternoon."

"Very good, _mon capitaine_," and Bob saluted military fashion, while
the other laughed.

"I don't know quite what to do with you yet, Nancarrow," said Pringle.
"You see, you are too good a man for a private--beside, you want to go
straight to the front. Naturally, too, at such times as these we can't
do everything by cast-iron rule. Exceptional cases demand exceptional
treatment. I can't say any more than that until I see my Colone