o take care of the two girls, and Lady and Pincher went
with us. It was getting late in the day, but I am bound to remember no
one said anything about their dinners, whatever they may have thought.
We cannot always help our thoughts. We happened to know it was roast
rabbits and currant jelly that day.

We walked two and two, and sang the "British Grenadiers" and "Soldiers
of the Queen" so as to be as much part of the British army as possible.
The Cauldron-Man had said the English were the other side of the hill.
But we could not see any scarlet anywhere, though we looked for it as
carefully as if we had been fierce bulls.

But suddenly we went round a turn in the road and came plump into a lot
of soldiers. Only they were not red-coats. They were dressed in gray and
silver. And it was a sort of furzy-common place, and three roads
branching out. The men were lying about, with some of their belts
undone, smoking pipes and cigarettes.

"It's not British soldiers," Alice said. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, I'm afraid
it's more enemy. You didn't sow the army-seed anywhere else, did you, H.
O., dear?"

H. O. was positive he hadn't. "But perhaps lots more came up where we
did sow them," he said; "they're all over England by now, very likely.
_I_ don't know how many men can grow out of one dragon's tooth."

Then Noel said, "It was my doing, anyhow, and I'm not afraid," and he
walked straight up to the nearest soldier, who was cleaning his pipe
with a piece of grass, and said:

"Please, are you the enemy?" The man said:

"No, young commander-in-chief, we're the English."

Then Oswald took command.

"Where is the general?" he said.

"We're out of generals just now, field-marshal," the man said, and his
voice was a gentleman's voice. "Not a single one in stock. We might suit
you in majors now--and captains are quite cheap. Competent corporals
going for a song. And we have a very nice colonel, too--quiet to ride or
drive."

Oswald does not mind chaff at proper times. But this was not one.

"You seem to be taking it very easy," he said, with disdainful
expression.

"This _is_ an easy," said the gray soldier, sucking at his pipe to see
if it would draw.

"I suppose _you_ don't care if the enemy gets into Maidstone or not!"
exclaimed Oswald, bitterly. "If I were a soldier I'd rather die than be
beaten."

The soldier saluted. "Good old patriotic sentiment," he said, smiling at
the heartfelt boy. But Oswald could bear no more.