The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-19


from the Front is this-that their teeth
have, grown very perceptibly whittier You
may trace this TO three causes. The supply
of baccy. whether for smoking or for chew
ing, has been extremely limited; alcoholic
drink has been absolutely unattainaole' ana
the food has been tough and has had to be
thoroughly maSticated. Apart from ali this.
mems faces have grown much darker in
complexion. and any painter will tell you
that color Is only valuable by contrast. 1t
did not occur TO young Adcock to think of
any OF these things, but he could not fail
to notice that the teeth Of his men were
abominably white and bright and cleaning.
Ii is by no ireans the purpose OF this mar
rative TO give away Adcock, who even
IL he went from England bit Of
bounder, came back as a proven man of
valor. with discretion and politeness added
to his record. For that reason his regi-
rnent shall be psudonymised. We will steal
from Thackeray's parodies and will speak
OF the corps as 1.-The Gallant Onety-oneth."
Adcock had been taken prisoner by the
Beers, and had been stripped of everything
but his shirt, and 1t was when he returned,
after a dreary seventeen miles walk across
the yeldt, that he noticed for the first time
how white and glazing behind the sun
tanned skin were his mems teeth, when
they relaxed their faces into laughter. He
had not e<ten seen them laugh, for their
part OF the campaign had been exceeding
grim and nasty. They had camped for the
most part on the bare ground. when the
night had grown too black for further
travel, and had been awakened at the first
grey intimation of the dawn. They had
been hard-ridden, hard fought, and ill-fed
for the greater part of the year; and what
ever the weather might have been they
had seen no such thing as a tent until the
last week or two, and no such thing as
a kitchen-range even of the rudest Sort
from the beginning.
1t was Adcock's misfortune that he had
taken a commission in territorial regi-
ment In his own county he was some
body even a very considerable somebody;
and the greater number Of the men who
served under him were enlisted. under the
territorial system, from Adcock's end Of
his own county. so that everybody knew
him, or knew about him. Such social hon.
ors as he wore were a trif1e new, and on
that ground alone he was inclined to exag-
gerate them. His father, who had started
as a shop-boy. had become a baronet, as a
result OF his own remarkable dexterity Of
hand and mind. He had also become a
millionaire, and these things, unfortunately
for Adcock, had happened before the young
man was born, although they were well
within the memory OF many contemporary
les. Amongst strangers he counted 1t al
most religion to speak Of his mother as
'her ladyship," and of his father as "Sir
Samuel" and these natural failings had got
him into trouble.
When after his seizure By the Beers he
tramped homeward to his camp, he felt
very mucth inclined to suicide. and If his
captors had left him but a gun and a
cartridge he might have put his idea into
practice. He would have done almost any
thing rather than face his regiment in
the ignominious guise which was left to
he was more wretchedly conscious Of his
bare and sunburnt legs than he was even
of his crippled and bleeding feet. He had
no idea that the mingled sense OF pride
and shame which had saved him from an
original intention of dying of starvation
on the veldt was in the least degree credi-
table to him, and it was when he started
on his march through the lines in that
cease to be bounder, though no such
notion crossed his mind. Five things Ad-
cock knew at this wretched moment and
no philosopher would ever afterwards have
succeeded in rersuading him that it is pos
sible only to think clearly of one thing at a
time. He knew that his shirt was absurdly
short, to begin with: he knew that his men
were lying on their ragged khaki backs
t., - g.
time that their teeth were very white and
cleaning; he noted further that their spurs
dug into the ground in their momentary
ecstasy OF mirth. and withdrawn again) be-
came perceptibly brighter. Finally, he
recognized the fact that the engagement
of yesterday had resulted in solitary cap
ture, and that he was its representative.
He stiffened his soul and went on between
the roaring lines; but he was not fated to
reach the colonels tent and make his
wretched exculpation there without further
misadventure. The men had got early into
camp the night before with a handful of
loot-the rarcst of events in that campaign.
They had fallen upon a train of ox-wag-
ons laden with medical comforts" in
tended for the express consolation of one
paticular Dutch fighting man who was fond
Va DdSS . DcCi. Wucn tic CHdliOtS Oh tQl5
hero had been looted, the boys had scat
tered the bottles far and wide. 1t was
Adcock's luck to tread upon a fragment of
the broken glass and to tumble straight
into the arms OF Jevons, who was at that
time at the blacklist and filthiest hour of an
unusually black and filthy day. Jevons, 1t
should be known at once. was the son of
an old-estabHshed earl, the sixth In
descent, who lived at the other end of Ad-
cocks county. IL there were one thing
more prominent in the mind OF the newly
created Lady Adcock than another. it was
the hope that in some far-distant day she
might be placed upon the visiting list of
Lady Erlscote. the mother of that identical
Jevons. who. II he had only taken the
trouble to proclaim the fact, was an hon.
orable and therefore TO be respected. But
the Eriscotes had been promoted six gener-
atoms ago for having become wealthy, and
had been steadily going backward in that
one respect ever since the title had been
conferred, and Jevons from his youth up
mad known very we'll that he would have
TO work fo- a living. He knew that the
one thing for which nature had fitted him
was the work of an engineer; and he had
devoted himself 10 his career with some
thins Ike enthusiasm. Nothing pleased him
much better than 10 get into canvas suit