"Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These
are our chaps--but what am I thinking of? You must know most of 'em.
Devine's my second in command now. There's old Luttrell--remember him at
Cherat?--Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison,
Pigeon, and Kyd."
With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember
that they had all been Tynesiders.
"I've never seen this sort of place," I said, looking round. "Half the
men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children
doing?"
"Eating, I hope," Boy Bayley answered. "Our canteens would never pay if
it wasn't for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started
people looked on 'em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or
two to lunch in 'em, and they've been grossly fashionable since."
"So I see," I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores came
up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of the
corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other
uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
"I give it up," I said. "This is guilty splendour that I don't
understand."
"Quite simple," said Burgard across the table. "The barrack supplies
breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard (which
we call I. G.) when it's in barracks as well as to the Line and Militia.
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