Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/170

 morals of the case, of one Bill Dockeray, a Liverpool wharfinger who had donned the blue and silver of the Dragoons in a moment of patriotism not altogether untainted by three fingers of gin which a pal had put in his fifteenth glass of beer—to regret his martial decision promptly and profanely as soon as he had discovered that the King's Shilling, a gay tunic, and the regimental band tuning up “The Dashing White Sergeant” were not all there was to life in barracks; that there was, also, drill and route marching and sobriety—and discipline.

Bill Dockeray had decided that he was a “free-born bloody Englishman,” had emphasized this assertion by flattening out a lance-jack's aquiline nose, and had been sent to “clink” for three days.

Which had not chastened him in the least.

On the contrary, he had grown steadily worse, until the colonel had become bored with the monotonous, almost weekly:

“Private William Dockeray, C Squadron, two days for insubordination!” and, after a particularly mutinous outbreak had threatened him with brigade court-martial.

It was then that Hector Wade had interfered.

“Let me have a talk with Bill Dockeray,” he had asked the colonel.

The latter had shaken his head.

“You'll never make a soldier out of him,” he had said.

“It won't do any harm to try, sir.”

“All right. Please yourself.”