Burroughs and Welcome disappeared, and the rats swarmed to their own again.
The deserters were found a week later; they had wormed through a system of
rat-holes into the next dug-out, inhabited by the Atkinses, and had
remained there, honoured guests.

It is the nature of the British Atkins to make a pet of anything, from a
toad to a sucking pig--he cannot help it. The story about St. George, doyen
of British soldiers, killing that dragon--nonsense! He would have spanked
it, may be, until it promised to reform, then given it a cigarette, and
taken it home to amuse the children. To return to our ferrets, Burroughs
and Welcome provided no exception to the rule; they were taught to sit up
and beg, and lie down and die, to turn handsprings and play the
mouth-organ; they were gorged with Maconochie, plum jam and rum ration; it
was doubtful if they ever went to bed sober. Times out of number they were
borne back to the Officers' Mess and exhorted to do their bit, but they
returned immediately to their friends the Atkinses, _viâ_ their private
route, not unnaturally preferring a life of continuous carousal and
vaudeville among the flesh-pots to sapping and mining down wet rat-holes.

Freddy was of opinion that, when the battalion proceeded up Unter den
Linden, Burroughs and Welcome would be with it as regimental mascots,
marching behind the band, bells on their fingers, rings on their toes. He
also assured me that if he ever again has to write an essay on the Fert,
its characteristics, the adjective "noble" will not figure so prominently.

* * * * *

HERBS OF GRACE.

III.