ignorant and uninformed among the
neighbours, to be the veritable portrait of the host as he appeared on the
occasion of some great funeral ceremony or public mourning.
    »What noisy fellow is that in the next room?« said Joe, when he had disposed
of his breakfast, and had washed and brushed himself.
    »A recruiting serjeant,« replied the Lion.
    Joe started involuntarily. Here was the very thing he had been dreaming of,
all the way along.
    »And I wish,« said the Lion, »he was anywhere else but here. The party make
noise enough, but don't call for much. There's great cry there, Mr. Willet, but
very little wool. Your father wouldn't like 'em, I know.«
    Perhaps not much under any circumstances. Perhaps if he could have known
what was passing at that moment in Joe's mind, he would have liked them still
less.
    »Is he recruiting for a - for a fine regiment?« said Joe, glancing at a
little round mirror that hung in the bar.
    »I believe he is,« replied the host. »It's much the same thing, whatever
regiment he's recruiting for. I'm told there an't a deal of difference between a
fine man and another one, when they're shot through and through.«
    »They're not all shot,« said Joe.
    »No,« the Lion answered, »not all. Those that are - supposing it's done easy
- are the best off in my opinion.«
    »Ah!« retorted Joe, »but you don't care for glory.«
    »For what?« said the Lion.
    »Glory.«
    »No,« returned the Lion, with supreme indifference. »I don't. You're right
in that, Mr. Willet. When Glory comes here, and calls for anything to drink and
changes a guinea to pay for it, I'll give it him for nothing. It's my belief,
sir, that the Glory's arms wouldn't do a very strong business.«
    These remarks were not at all comforting. Joe walked out, stopped at the
door of the next room, and listened. The serjeant was describing a military
life. It was all drinking, he said, except that there were frequent intervals of
eating and love-making. A battle was the finest thing in the world - when your
side won it - and Englishmen always did