stories, however, made him seek the men's society. He learned much
more than he had bargained for; and in this manner. It was on the
last night before the regiment entrained to the front. The
barracks were stripped of everything movable, and the men were too
excited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell
of chloride of lime.

"And what," said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, after some
conversation on the eternal subject, "are you going to do to me,
Dan?" This might have been the language of an able conspirator
conciliating a weak spirit.

"You'll see," said Dan grimly, turning over in his cot, "or I
rather shud say you'll not see."

This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under
the bed-clothes.

"Bc easy with him," put in Egan from the next cot. "He has got his
chanst o' goin' clean. Listen, Mulcahy, all we want is for the
good sake of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as
a man shud. There's be heaps an' heaps of enemy - plenshus heaps.
Go there an' do all you can and die decent. You'll die with a good
name there. 'Tis not a hard thing considerin'."
-
Again Mulcahy shivered.

"An' how could a man wish to die better than fightin'?" added Dan
consolingly.