concert, or read the papers, and 'ave a social, perhaps, you know;
sometimes ask the girls round to afternoon tea."

I had a barrack-room full of these people to look after. Most of them
got drunk. Once a young medical student tried to knife me with a
Chinese jack-knife which his uncle, a missionary, had given him. He
had "downed" too much whisky. Just as boys do at school, so these men
formed into cliques, and "hung together" in twos and threes.

Some of them, like the "lit'ry society" clerk, had never seen much of
life or people; had lived in a little suburban villa and pretended to
be "City men." Others had knocked about all over the world. These were
mostly seafaring men. Savage was such a one. He was one of the
buccaneer type, strong and sunburnt, with tattooed arms. Often he sang
an old sea-song, which always ended, "Forty-five fadom, and a clear
sandy bottom!" He knew most of the sea chanties of the old days, one
of which went something in this way--

"Heave away Rio! Heave away Rio!
So fare thee well, my sweet pretty maid!
Heave away Rio! Heave away Rio!
For there's plenty of gold--so we've been told--
On the banks of the Sacrament--o!"

An old Irish apple-woman used to come into the barracks, and sit by
the side of the parade ground with two baskets of apples and a box of
chocolate.

She did a roaring trade when we were dismissed from drill.