On another occasion the major suffered when a battalion kit inspection took place early one December morning.  Wankin had sold his spare pair of boots, the pair that is always kept on top of the kit-bag; but when the major inspected Wankin’s kit the boots were there, newly polished and freed from the most microscopic speck of dust.  Someone tittered during the inspection, then another, and the major smelt a rat.  He lifted Wankin’s kit-bag in his hand and found Wankin’s feet tucked under it—­Wankin’s feet in stockinged soles.  The major was justly indignant.  “One step to the front, left turn,” he roared.  “March in front of every rank in the battalion and see what you think of it!”

With stockinged feet, cold, but still wearing an inscrutable smile of impudence, Wankin paraded in front of a thousand grinning faces and in due course got back to his kit and beside the sarcastic major.

“What do you think of it?” asked the latter.

“I don’t think much of it, sir,” Wankin replied.  “It’s the dirtiest regiment I ever inspected.”

Wankin was sometimes unlucky; fortune refused to favour him when he took up the work of picket on the road between St. Albans and London.  No unit of his regiment is supposed to go more than two miles beyond St. Albans without a written permit, and guards are placed at different points of the two-mile radius to intercept the regimental rakes whose feet are inclined to roving.  Wankin learned that the London road was not to be guarded on a certain Sunday.  The regiment was to parade for a long route-march, and all units were to be in attendance.  Wankin pondered over things for a moment, girt on his belt and sword and took up his position on the London road within a hundred yards of a wayside public-house.  At this tavern a traveller from St. Albans may obtain a drink on a Sabbath day.

Soldiers, like most mortals, are sometimes dry and like to drink; Wankin was often dry and Wankin had seldom much money to spend.  The first soldier who came out from the town wanted to get to the tavern.

“Can’t pass here!” the mock-picket told him.

“But I’m dry and I’ve a cold that catches me awful in the throat.”

“Them colds are dangerous,” Wankin remarked in a contemplative voice, tinged with compassion.  “Used to have them bad myself an’ I feel one coming on.  I think gin, same as they have in the trenches, is the stuff to put a cold away.  But I’m on the rocks.”

“If you’ll let me through I’ll stand on my hands.”

“It’s risky,” said Wankin, then in a brave burst of bravado he said, “Damn it all!  I’ll let you go by.  It’s hard to stew dry so near the bar!” An hour later the young man set off towards home, and on his way he met two of his comrades-in-arms on the road.

“Going to ——­ pub?” he inquired.

“Going to see that no one does go near it,” was the answer.  “Picket duty for the rest of the day, we are.”