h ga bibble_! I don't care!" bawled the abandoned George; "can't be
much worse than doing 'straight duty' round Barracks, here!--same thing,
day in, day out--go and look at the 'duty detail' board--Regimental
Number--Constable Redmond, 'prisoner's escort'--punching gangs of
prisoners around all day long, on little rotten jobs about Barracks--and
'night guard' catching you every third night and--"

"Oyez! oyez! oyez! you good men of this--"

"Oh, yes! you can come the funny man all right, Mac--you've got a 'staff'
job. Straight duty don't affect you. Why don't they shove me out on
detachment again, and give me another chance to do real police
work? . . . I tell you I'm fed up--properly. . . . I wish I was out of
the blooming Force--I'm not 'wedded' to it, like you."

"'Ear, 'ear!" chimed in Hardy, with a sort of miserable heartiness.
McSporran's contribution was merely a dour Scotch grin. In the moment's
silence that followed a tremendous bawling squall of wind rocked the
building to its very foundations. The back-draught of it sucked open the
door, and, borne upon its wings, the roaring, full-chorused burst of a
popular barrack-room chantey floated up the stairs from the canteen
below--

"_Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he--
He called for his pipe, and he called for his glass,
And he called for his old M.P._"

Outside the blizzard still moaned and howled; every now and then, between
lulls, screeching gusts of sleet beat upon the windows. The parrot,
clinging upside down to the roof of its cage, winked rapidly with
Sphinx-like eyes and inclined its head sideways in an intent listening
attitude.

"Eyah! but th' Force's a bloomin' good home to some of you, all th'
same," growled McCullough. "Listen to that 'norther'? . . . How'd you
like to be chucked out into th' cold, cold world right now?--You, Hardy!
that's never done nothin' but 'soldier' all your life--you, Reddy! with
your 'collidge edukashun'?"

George, unmoved, listened respectfully awhile, lying on his stomach with
his chin cupped in his hands. "Must have been a great bunch of fellows
when you first took on the Force, Dave?" he queried presently.

From sheer force of habit the old policeman glanced at his interlocutor
suspiciously. But that young gentleman's face appearing open and serene,
merely expressing naive interest, he grunted an affirmative "Uh-huh!" and
backed his conviction with a cheerful oath