"It's the more important for you to have it clearly in your mind that we
are laboring in the cause of humanity, freedom, and justice. Exactly like
the Allies in the late war, you know, Sergeant. Keep that in your mind,
clinch it! He hasn't wanted you to do anything particular to-night, or
asked for me?"

"No, sir. He's happy with--with what you call his playthings."

"What are they but playthings?" asked Beaumaroy, tilting his glass to his
lips with a smile perhaps a little wry.

"Only I wish as you wouldn't talk about judges and juries," the Sergeant
complained.

"I really don't know whether it's a civil or a criminal matter, or both,
or neither," Beaumaroy admitted candidly. "But what we do know, Sergeant,
is that it provides us with excellent billets and rations. Moreover, a
thing that you certainly will not appreciate, it gratifies my taste for
the mysterious."

"I hope there's a bit more coming from it than that," said the Sergeant.
"That is, if we stick together faithful, sir."

"Oh, we shall! One thing puzzles me about you, Sergeant. I don't think
I've mentioned it before. Sometimes you speak almost like an educated
man; at others your speech is, well, illiterate."

"Well, sir, it's a sort of mixture of my mother; she was class, the
blighter who come after my father, and the Board School--"