so you'll 'ave killed him, m'anin' no more than to kape
yourself warm. 'Tis a recruity's thrick that. Pass the cl'anin'-rod,
sorr."

I snuggled down, abashed, and after an interval the low, even voice of
Mulvaney began.

II

"Did I ever 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 episodes in Mulvaney's checkered career.

"Before--before--long before was that business av Annie Bragin an' the
corp'ril's ghost. Never 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 told you, I was a man that filled the eye an'
delighted the sowl av women. Niver man was hated as I have been.
Niver man was loved as I--no, not within half a day's march av ut. For
the first five years av my service, whin I was what I wud give my sowl
to be now, I tuk whatever was widin my reach, an' digested ut, an'
that's more than most men can say. Dhrink I tuk, an' ut did me no
harm. By the hollow av hiven, I could play wid four women at wanst,
an' kape thim from findin' out anything about the other three, and
smile like a full-blown marigold through ut all. Dick Coulhan, of the
battery we'll have down on us to-night, could dhrive his team no better
than I mine; an' I hild the worser cattle. An' so I lived an' so I was
happy, till afther that business wid Annie Bragin--she that turned me
off as cool as a meat-safe, an' taught me where I stud in the mind av
an honest woman. '