omfort or
advise. 'You're the best man in the regiment, and, next to Ortheris,
the biggest fool. Lie down and wait till we're attacked. What force
will they turn out? Guns, think you?'

'Try that wid your lorrds an' ladies, twistin' an' turnin' the talk,
tho' you mint ut well. Ye cud say nothin' to help me, an' yet ye niver
knew what cause I had to be what I am.'

'Begin at the beginning and go on to the end,' I said royally. 'But
rake up the fire a bit first.'

I passed Ortheris's bayonet for a poker.

'That shows how little we know what we do,' said Mulvaney, putting it
aside. 'Fire takes all the heart out av the steel, an' the next time,
maybe, that our little man is fighting for his life his bradawl'll
break, an' so you'll ha' killed him, manin' no more than to kape
yourself warm. 'Tis a recruity's thrick that. Pass the clanin'-rod,
Sorr.'

I snuggled down abashed; and after an interval the voice of Mulvaney
began.

'Did I iver tell you how Dinah Shadd came to be wife av mine?'

I dissembled a burning anxiety that I had felt for some months--ever
since Dinah Shadd, the strong, the patient, and the infinitely tender,
had of her own good love and free will washed a shirt for me, moving
in a barren land where washing was not.

'I can't remember,' I said casually. 'Was it before or after you made
love to Annie Bragin, and got no satisfaction?'

The story of Annie Bragin is written in another place. It is one of
the many less respectable episodes in Mulvaney's chequered career.

'Before--before--long before, was that business av Annie Bragin an'
the corp'ril's ghost. Niver woman was the worse for me whin I had
married Dinah. There's a time for all things, an' I know how to kape
all things in place--barrin' the dhrink, that kapes me in my place wid
no hope av comin' to be aught else.'

'Begin at the beginning,' I insisted. 'Mrs. Mulvaney told me that you
married her when you were quartered in Krab Bokhar barracks.'

'An' the same is a cess-pit,' said Mulvaney piously. 'She spoke thrue,
did Dinah. 'Twas this way. Talkin' av that, have ye iver fallen in
love, Sorr?'

I preserved the silence of the damned. Mulvaney continued:--

'Thin I will assume that ye have not. _I_ did. In the days av my
youth, as I have more than wanst tould you, I was a man that filled
the eye an' delighted the sowl av women. Niver man was hated as I have
bin. Niver man was loved as I--no, not within half a day's march av
ut! For th