The Sergeant-Major throws open the door, and barks--"Private Dunshie's
escort!"

The order is repeated _fortissimo_ by some one outside. There is a
clatter of ammunition boots getting into step, and a solemn procession
of four files into the room. The leader thereof is a stumpy but
enormously important-looking private. He is the escort. Number two is
the prisoner. Numbers three and four are the accuser--counsel for the
Crown, as it were--and a witness. The procession reaches the table at
which the Captain is sitting. Beside him is a young officer, one Bobby
Little, who is present for "instructional" purposes.

"Mark time!" commands the Sergeant-Major. "Halt! Right turn!"

This evolution brings the accused face to face with his judge. He
has been deprived of his cap, and of everything else "which may be
employed as, or contain, a missile." (They think of everything in the
King's Regulations.)

"What is this man's crime, Sergeant-Major?" inquires the Captain.

"On this sheet, sir," replies the Sergeant-Major....

By a "crime" the ordinary civilian means something worth recording in
a special edition of the evening papers--something with a meat-chopper
in it. Others, more catholic in their views, will tell you that it
is a crime to inflict corporal punishment on any human being; or to
permit performing animals to appear upon the stage; or to subsist upon
any food but nuts. Others, of still finer clay, will classify such
things as Futurism, The Tango, Dickeys, and the Albert Memorial as