Dingy and veldt-stained though he might be, Carew at
heart would always remain the exquisite. However, exquisite that he
was bound to be, he was even more the soldier, and his gay eyes had
clouded, as he had wrung Weldon's hand in parting.
"Lucky dog!" he said enviously. "I am off duty for two weeks more,
and you are going back to the thick of things. One must take it as
it comes; but I say, old man, don't forget me when the bullets begin
to pelt at you again."
And Weldon had been better than his promise. He had thought of
Carew, day and night, for the entire week, thought of him and missed
him acutely. Carew was an ideal comrade in that he never, under any
circumstances, took himself in earnest.
A leg which will carry a man on horseback is by no means fit for
football. Weldon, finished player that he was, found it tame work to
umpire a team whose sole idea of tactics was to get there in any way
that offered itself. Half an hour sufficed; then, appointing an
understudy, he walked away in search of Paddy. From the midst of a
torrent of instructions to his quartette of black subordinates,
Paddy's voice sang out a cheery greeting.
"Come along, little feller! Come and get something to eat.
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