stay with me. I
am supposed to have a couple of soldiers detailed for this job, but I
haven't seen anything of them yet. Why can't I have this man?"

Fat seemed to grow bigger than ever round the chest as he heard
himself referred to as "this man." That was getting on, sure enough.
More, he was mightily pleased that someone really wanted him.

"I guess you can have him if you want him," answered the
sergeant-major. "Have you anything else to do to-day, Benson?"

"Not that I know about," was Fat's reply.

"Stay here, then, until the sergeant is through with you."

That night the stores sergeant suggested that Fat come to him next
day. The stores were just starting, and the work of setting things
in their proper places was far from uninteresting. The boy took a
real delight in his new task; and when, three days later, the
sergeant-major called into the stores on his way past and said to
the stores sergeant, "Are you going to keep Benson here for good?"
the stores sergeant replied without hesitation, "I sure am."

To have been among the stores from the time they were first unpacked,
and to have assisted in the work of first placing them where they
belonged, gave Fat a sort of sense of proprietorship. Stores still
poured in every day or so. The two soldiers who were to help at last
made their appearance, but neither of them seemed to particularly
appeal to the stores sergeant, who was by that time depending more
than he realized upon the quick intelligence and persistent application
of his big-bodied boy assistant.

Fat's prime chance came at the end of the first fortnight, when the
stores sergeant was kept in bed for a few days from unusually severe
after-effects of vaccination. The pair of soldiers had not been in
the new stores sufficiently long nor taken keen enough interest in
them to be of much use except when working under direction. So the
real storekeeper was Fat for the interim. The sergeant-major
discovered the fact and reported it casually to Major Phelps, who
spoke to the colonel about it. Both of these officers had their
hands very full at that time, and both of them had felt the blessing
of having the ever-ready and ever-willing Brighton boys always on
tap, as it were, to run quick errands and be eyes and feet for anyone
that required an extra pair of either.

It was a source of gratification to Colonel Marker that the boys were
doing well; and that one of their number had worked his way