bags behind him.

McKay followed him out of the store.

"You won't take the coffee, then?"

"Certainly not. I wish I had the people here that sent out such
stuff."

"May I have it?"

"If you like. It's all one to me."

"Give me the requisition, then."

Armed with this important document, he returned, and accosted Mr.
Dawber.

"He has changed his mind about the coffee. You can give it to me; I
will see that he gets it. Here is the requisition."

The commissariat officer was only too pleased to get rid of the bags
according to form.

McKay next attacked him about the _greggos_. Despairing, after all he
had heard, of getting them by fair means, he resolved to try a
stratagem.

"You received yesterday, I believe, a consignment from the _Burlington
Castle_?"

"Quite so. There are the chests, still unpacked. I have not the least
idea what's inside."

"You have the bill of lading, I suppose?"

"Certainly."

"May I look at it? I come from the _Burlington Castle_, and the
captain thinks he was wrong to have sent you the cases without passing
the bill of lading through the commissariat officer at headquarters."

"I believe he is right. Here is the bill; it has not Mr. Fielder's
signature. This is most irregular. What shall I do?"

"You had better give me back the bill of lading and the cases until
the proper formalities have been observed."

"You are perfectly right, my dear sir, and I am extremely obliged to
you for your suggestion."

A few minutes later McKay had possession of the cases. With the help
of some of his uncle's crew he moved them back to the seaside, where
he waited until Hyde's arrival from the front. Then they loaded up
the _greggos_ on the baggage-animals, and returned to camp in triumph.

From that day the men of the Royal Picts were fairly well off. Their
condition was not exactly comfortable, but they suffered far less than
the bulk of their comrades in the Crimea.

Their sheepskin-jackets were not very military in appearance, but they
were warm, and their heavy seamen's boots kept out the wet. They had a
sufficiency of food, too, served hot, and prepared with
rough-and-ready skill, under the superintendence of Hyde.

He had struck up a great friendship with a Frenchman, one of the
Voltigeurs, in a neighbouring camp, who, in return for occasional nips
of sound brandy, brought straight from the _Burlington Castle_, freely
imparted the whole of his culinary knowledge to the quart