"It is quite out of the question," said the Adjutant, severely. "Major Primmer has formerly complained, and the C.O. has desired me to--to--to see that the nuisance is abated----"

So far, regimental discipline kept the Adjutant's risible muscles under control; then he smiled, for he was more human than adjutants are wont to be in orderly room. "And, upon my soul, youngster," he went on, picking up a letter which lay beside him, "it is a bit hard on Primmer. I can imagine his disgust! H'm, h'm--'have to report'--Ah! here--'As usual, I woke with the entry of my body-servant bringing my early tea. As usual, also, I lay for a few moments to collect my thoughts; but when I turned to pour out the beverage'--good old Primmer--'my disgust was great to find Lieutenant Graham's so-called tame monkey--I may interpolate that it is a specimen of the Presbytis schistaceus, a bold and predatory tribe, and not the Presbytis entellus, a much milder race'--good old Primmer again; he's nothing if not exact--'in full possession of my tea-table. The brute had consumed all the toast, save one crust, which I regret to say it threw at me when I attempted remonstrance.'"

We both laughed.

"Can't you see Major Primmer, V.C., sitting up in bed with his eye-glasses on, in a mortal funk," I began, trying to brazen it out. But official decorum had resumed its sway over the Adjutant, and he read on:

"'It then proceeded, with an accuracy which I cannot believe to be entirely self-taught'--H'm, Graham, that is serious; remember he is your superior officer--'to imitate closely my method of pouring out tea. This is peculiar, as I invariably put the milk in first. My efforts at checking the lawless brute were again quite unavailing; and resulted only in the deliberate emptying of the scalding hot tea over my nether garments.'"

"Why couldn't he say his pyjamas," I groaned, captiously; for I recognised that things had gone a bit too far. I had had no idea Jennie had such a fund of humour.

But once more official decorum failed to respond.

"'This, I may add, it did again and again, until the teapot was exhausted. It then pouched the whole contents of the sugar-basin, drank the milk, and smeared its head with the butter. The latter action appeared to arouse reminiscence. It repaired to my dressing-table, brushed its hair with my brushes, used my pommade hongroise, and then proceeding to the wash-hand-stand, nefariously laid hold of my tooth-brush. This, however, was too much. I rose. At the same moment my body-servant providently appeared with my hot water, and the brute, jabbering at me in unseemly fashion, made for the window, which I always keep open winter and summer. I have already requested Lieutenant Graham to remove this savage animal; and now have no option ...'"

The Adjutant laid down the letter. "It's hard on Primmer," he said, with almost superhuman solemnity; "the tooth-brush incident was----" he resumed speech after a brief pause, "and he is a good sort is old Primmer."

I was perfectly aware of the fact. Only the week before, when we were out in the jungle, he had dosed me with quinine and taken my temperature every two hours during an attack of fever and ague.

So Jennie the monkey must give way; but what the deuce was I to do with her? I did not want to have to shoot her.

"Give her to Tootsie," suggested the Adjutant, sympathetically; "I heard her say not long ago she would give anything for a monkey."

It was a brilliant idea. Miss d'Aguilar, familiarly known as Tootsie, performed the arduous duties of spinster to our little frontier station; so that afternoon, before going on duty, I rode round by "The Forest," so called, I presume, because there was not a bit of vegetation larger than a caper bush between it and the Beluchistan Hills.

I found the young lady and her mother--a frankly black-and-tan lady who looked as if she would have been more comfortable with a veil to roll round her fat person--engaged, after their wont, in entertaining some of the junior subalterns at tea. As I entered, Tootsie--a sparkling brunette with gloriously startling Titian brown hair, due to cunning applications of henna dye (there were traces of it on Mamma's hands)--was, in a high-pitched staccato voice, recounting with arch gaiety, her impressions of Calcutta, whence she had but lately returned. "Yes! I do declare the men are just sillies. Why! do not believe me, but I asked a young fellow in a Europe shop to bring me flesh-coloured stockings, and he brought me tan! Was he not a silly boy?"

The pause which inevitably followed this anecdote seemed a fitting opportunity for somewhat sentimentally offering Jennie. Had I offered a bomb the effect could not have been more disastrous. Miss grew crimson; Mamma, purple and plethoric, wondered how any gentleman could keep such a nasty brute, still less offer it as a fit companion to an innocent young girl.

Evidently Jennie had again got herself disliked; how, the junior sub. told me succinctly as we rode home.

"You see, Tootsie dyes her hair--and henna's a bit of a lengthy business. They don't mind me, I'm only a boy; but she has to have it plastered over her head for hours. So she has a big hat with a false bun and fringe for these occasions. And Jennie got hold of it somehow last week. I happened to be there; and, by George, I chevied the beast half over cantonments before she would give it up--she's a regular devil."

I sighed. Evidently the culprit must be shot. She had no friends.

As I came up to the guardroom, however, I heard a song being lilted out by a tenor voice into the hot dusty air. The refrain of London sounded odd here in the desert on the confines of civilisation:

"Yes, sir," reported the sergeant. "It's Dy'sy, sure enough. He's in agin; more often in nor out."

"What for?" I asked, a trifle regretfully, for the man, nicknamed by his comrades Dy'sy from his habit of perpetually warbling that aggravating ditty, was rather a favourite of mine. He was a perfectly reckless rolling stone, a bad shilling of about five-and-thirty, who from the way he had, when not on his guard, of assimilating drill, must have been through it several times. But over his past he drew a veil; and, indeed, his present was sufficient for character. He had come out with a draft in the cold weather, and already his evil influence with the recruits was notorious. Yet I liked the fellow; he was a first-class light-weight bruiser, out and away the best in the regiment. I had taken lessons of his, and his devil-may-care defiance had been attractive.

"Same as before, sir," replied the sergeant. "Shindy in Number Three. 'Tain't no manner o' use shiftin' 'is room. He'd purwurt a Sunday School."

Solid truth in every word! Yet the light blue eyes which met mine had a twinkle in them that softened my heart.

"If you are such a cursed fool," I said, as sternly as I could, "you'll come to grief."

His face took on sublime innocence. "Beg pardin, sir; but it ralely ain't fair w'en a party is trying to do 'is dooty to 'is parsters an' marsters. Them young chaps was makin' fun hover your monkey usin' the major's py-jammas has a slopper; an' I only tole 'm it was kind o' disrespekful like, as she meant it hall in k'yindness, an' bid 'm hold their jaw. That's how the tin dishes got hinjured, for," he added, with great dignity, "I won't 'ave no slanderin' o' dumb animals as can't speak up for thesselves."

A gleam of hope shot through me. "You're fond of animals, are you?" I asked.

For once candid confidence came to him. "Well! I don' know, sir," he replied, "but 'twas the loss o' a dorg as fust set me wrong." He gave a glance towards the sergeant, who was discreetly retiring, and then went on. "I was but a young chap, just gone twenty, and the dorg was a bull tarrier, sir, as good as they make 'm. S'yme n'yme as your monkey, sir--Jennie. We was chums. Then I got a gel, one o' the yaller-haired kind, sir, an' I was a fool about her, as young chaps is apt ter be. Well, sir, I 'adn't bin just steddy--no real 'arm, you know, but sort o' light like. But I settles down an' begins ter screw against gettin' married. The yaller-haired gel was livin' with me, sir, so as to save time like, but we was sure to get married in church an' go hoff emigrating so soon as I'd got the 'oof. An' Jennie was to go, too, for she an' me was chums. Well, sir, there was a big, black chap, coster he was, I licked him more nor once for 'angin' round; but there! females are built that way. So it 'appened when I come 'ome one hevening that I found 'er gone, an' the 'oof too. An' Jennie----" he drew his hand slowly over his mouth--"Jennie had died game, sir. She 'ad a bit of the big black brute's corduroys betwixt 'er teeth, but 'e'd bashed 'er 'ead open with 'is boot."

There was silence. Then he went on with a reckless laugh, "'Tweren't the gel, sir; there's plenty o' them ter be got, yaller hair an' all. But Jennie an' me had been chums."

Five minutes later the monkey had changed masters. To oblige me and save Jennie from being shot Dy'sy Bell had promised to take care of her.

"I'u'd rather 'ave no money, sir," he said, when he appeared to fetch her away and I offered him something towards her keep, "'twould only go to the canteen, and if I get into trouble, oo'd look after 'er?"

'"Er," I may mention, had just bitten his finger through to the bone, an action which he dismissed with the remark that "females was built that way."

Three days later, as I rode past Number Three barrack, I saw Jennie cracking nuts on a brand-new perch. Dy'sy, it now appeared, was quite a smart carpenter, and had made it himself in the workshop. Three days after that again, the perch was embellished by a brass chain, and Dy'sy admitted shamefacedly that he had once been in a foundry. So time passed on, until it occurred to me that Dy'sy had ceased to come into prominence before me as company officer, and I questioned the sergeant concerning him.

The official did not move a muscle. "Number Three's has quiet has a orphin asylum now, sir. As I lies in my bunk I don't 'ear no whisper. But it was Bedlam broke loose the fust night after Jennie come, sir. I lay low, seeing as there never was no use in tryin' to get at the bottom o' that sort o' row in the dark, sir. An' next morning 'arf the room complained of 'avin' a hunbaptised brute put to bed with 'em. The monkey slep' with Dy'sy, sir, so I spoke to 'im, an' told 'im I c'u'dn't 'ave no more complaints, an' he replied, quite civil-like, as there sh'u'dn't be none. An' there wasn't; but 'arf the men 'ad black eyes that week, sir, though 'ow they came by 'm they didn't say."

I did not enquire. It was sufficient for me that Number Three barrack was rapidly becoming regenerate. As I passed one day I heard a voice say, "Now, boys! I won't 'ave no cuss words; they ain't fit for a lydy to hear."

"You don't go so often to the canteen as you used to, Bell," I said to him one day when I found him sitting alone in the verandah nursing Jennie, who jibbered at me.

"Ain't got the money, sir," he replied cheerfully. "Neringis and sich--like is a horful price in this Gordforsaken spot, an' Jennie's been a bit ailin'; won't eat nothing else."

"Well, you'll be getting your stripes soon, I expect, if you go on as you are doing," I remarked.

He flushed up. "I 'opes so, sir," he said modestly. "Jennie 'u'd set store by a striped sleeve, females being built that way."

My prophecy proved correct. Dy'sy was made a corporal, and before long, in the Border campaign which the cold weather brought us, found himself a sergeant, and so eventually in charge of a telegraph station on the top of one of the passes to our rear.

It was an important post to keep open, since on the integrity of the wire through a mile or so of singularly difficult country hung the certainty of speedy relief, should any kind of disaster overtake our little force, which was intimidating the tribes in the valleys beyond.

And disaster did overtake it, chiefly by reason of a terrific snowstorm which swept over it early in February--a snowstorm which paralysed progress, and made all thoughts turn to the probability of that mile of telegraph wire remaining intact.

No supplies could, of course, be sent up, so the men in the station must either starve or return, if, indeed, they had not been overwhelmed already. The latter seemed the most likely, since, though the through wire remained open, not a signal came from the station.

"An avalanche most likely," said the Adjutant. "The station was built, I always said, in the wrong place. What luck the wire isn't damaged as yet. It won't be long before it is, I'm afraid."

It was, however, still going strong when four men, one badly frost-bitten, made their way into camp. They had started five, they said, by Sergeant Bell's orders, after they had with difficulty extricated themselves from the ruins of the house, which had been completely smashed up by a tremendous avalanche. It was impossible, Dy'sy had said, to keep the post and six men also, so he had given them what supplies he could spare--the store was luckily uninjured--and bidden them take their best chance of safety at once.

As for his, it seemed but slender, as I felt when, a fortnight later, we managed to cut our way through the drifts that lay round the hollow where the station had stood. Across this hollow the through wire still stretched, and quite recently someone had evidently been at work upon it, for tools lay on fresh frosted snow. But all was still as the dead, quiet as the grave. We found Dy'sy lying on his face in the store many feet below the snow surface. The steps cut down to it were worn with the passing of his feet, but he did not move when we bent over him; something, however, cuddled close in his arms, woke and jibbered at us angrily. It was Jennie, dressed for warmth in every rag of blanketing available. She was as fat as a pig, and the charcoal embers in the tin can hung round her neck were not yet quite cold. But Dy'sy was skin and bone; yet the Irish doctor, as he bent hastily to examine him, said, cheerfully: "Annyhow, his love for the baste may have saved his life; she's kept his heart warm whatever."

And she had.

Six weeks afterwards I sat beside him in hospital. He showed thin and gaunt still in his grey flannel dressing-gown, and two fingers were missing on his left hand.

"Well!" I said, "so they've given you the D.S.M., and a special pension if you want to go."

He smiled brilliantly.

"Don't want to, sir. Jennie she likes the H'army; females is built that way. And as for t'other, 'twas really Jennie done it. I couldn't take her through the snow--she'd 'a' died for sure. An' I couldn't leave her, so there wasn't no choice."