at his bivouac entrance. He sits between them after evening stables,
smoking his pipe and fancying himself back in Zanzibar; he expects the
coker-nuts along about August, he tells me.

Summer has come, and on every slope graze herds of winter-worn
gun-horses and transport mules. The new grass has gone to the heads
of the latter and they make continuous exhibitions of themselves,
gambolling about like ungainly lambkins and roaring with unholy
laughter. Summer has come, and my groom and countryman has started to
whistle again, sure sign that Winter is over, for it is only during
the Summer that he reconciles himself to the War. War, he admits,
serves very well as a light gentlemanly diversion for the idle months,
but with the first yellow leaf he grows restless and hints indirectly
that both ourselves and the horses would be much better employed in
the really serious business of showing the little foxes some sport
back in our own green isle. "That Paddy," says he, slapping the bay
with a hay wisp, "he wishes he was back in the county Kildare, he does
so, the dear knows. Pegeen, too, if she would be hearin' the houn's
shoutin' out on her from the kennels beyond in Jigginstown she'd dhrop
down dead wid the pleasure wid'in her, an' that's the thrue word,"
says he, presenting the chestnut lady with a grimy army biscuit. "Och
musha, the poor foolish cratures," he says and sighs.

However, Summer has arrived, and by the sound of his cheery whistle at
early stables shrilling "Flannigan's Wedding," I understand that the
horses are settling down once more and we can proceed with the battle.

If my groom and countryman is not an advocate of war as a winter sport
our Mr. MacTavish, on the other hand, is of the directly opposite
opinion. "War," he murmured dreamily to me yesterday as we lay on our