They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for them. That's
where we make our profits. Look!"
Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in
the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to jest
with the uniforms about them; and when one o'clock clanged from a big
half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.
"Those," Devine explained, "are either our Line or Militiamen, as such
entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost. It's cheaper than
they could buy it; an' they meet their friends too. A man'll walk a mile
in his dinner hour to mess with his own lot."
"Wait a minute," I pleaded. "Will you tell me what those plumbers and
plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do with
what I was taught to call the Line?"
"Tell him," said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.
"The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman's generally a town-bird
who can't afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in an Area for
two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the third.
He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for being on
duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered out to help
the Guard in a row. He needn't live in barracks unless he wants to, and
he and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at usual rates.
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