Page:Life's Handicap - Kipling (1891).djvu/52

 thim. I'll tell him I was engaged in financial operations connected wid a church,' and he flapped his way to cantonments and the cells, singing lustily—

So they sent a corp'ril's file, And they put me in the gyard-room For conduck unbecomin' of a soldier.'

And when he was lost in the midst of the moonlight we could hear the refrain—

Bang upon the big drum, bash upon the cymbals, As we go marchin' along, boys, oh! For although in this campaign There's no whisky nor champagne, We'll keep our spirits goin' with a song, boys!'

Therewith he surrendered himself to the joyful and almost weeping guard, and was made much of by his fellows. But to the colonel he said that he had been smitten with sunstroke and had lain insensible on a villager's cot for untold hours; and between laughter and goodwill the affair was smoothed over, so that he could, next day, teach the new recruits how to 'Fear God, Honour the Queen, Shoot Straight, and Keep Clean.'