In and around Eecke, the Southdown Division Artillery abode ten good days. It was earliest April. Sun shone on clean farms, on green fields and white pavÉ roads. Men, cleaning harness and equipment or leading teams to water, whistled at their work: the lines which the City had graven on their faces, disappeared. They chaffered merrily with the peasants for eggs or milk; sang songs in the estaminets; strolled, cigarettes in mouth, to Steenvoorde or Caestre, to Godewaersvelde or Sylvestre Cappel.

General Blacklock gave a dinner to his Colonels; the Colonels dined and wined their Battery Commanders. They held a “race-meeting” at which Peter and Little Willie—to the intense joy of all spectators—took a scunner at the post-and-rails, rolling headlong and unharmed in the mud. But, principally, the Fourth Brigade played poker.

Night after night, Headquarter Mess resounded to, “Raise you fifty, sir,” “All right, P.J., I’ll see you.” Even Lodden caught the infection.

They played high; and they played fast: but they played neither high enough nor fast enough to catch the Weasel. Always, he defeated them; his hard blue eyes, his firm lips, gave never a hint of the cards in his hand. Even Conway, who had learned his poker wisdom in Iquique (where there is no rain but much whisky) and completed his education at the “Spotted Dog” in Kualalumpur (where there is much rain and still more whisky) acknowledged himself overmastered. Sandiland, the newcomer,—a blond clean-shaven Regular who looked more like an actor than a soldier—stone-walled in vain; was lured from his caution; heavily mulcted: Lodden, the richest member of the party, found bluff met with counter-bluff. Only Peter held his own. For Peter, in addition to knowing the game, knew his Colonel.

“Very wrong for me to play so high with my juniors,” Stark used to say—crushing notes into his pocket-book after the defeated ones had gone; “but they’ll only rob each other if I don’t rob them. Where did you learn the game, P.J.?”

“I, sir.” Peter would smile. “Oh, I’ve sat in some rather hot games in my time. In Havana, with the Tobacco Trust crowd; and when I was in New York.”

Then they would sit up over a last whisky-and-soda, discussing the play of this hand or that; till Stark produced his pet theory: “Say what you like, P.J., no man ever knows another till he’s drunk port and played poker with him.”