as their finances run to it; or they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It's a cheap way for a young man to see the world, and if he's any good he can try to get into the Guard later.'
'The main point,' said Pigeon, 'is that F.S. corps are "swagger"—the correct thing. It 'ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don't you know,' he drawled, trying to render the English voice.
'That's what happens to a chap who doesn't volunteer,' said Bayley. 'Well, after the F.S. corps (we've about forty of 'em) come our territorial Volunteer battalions, and a man who can't suit himself somewhere among 'em must be a shade difficult. We've got those "League" corps I was talking about; and those studious corps that just scrape through their ten days' camp; and we've crack corps of highly-paid mechanics who can afford a two months' "heef" in an interesting Area every other year; and we've senior and junior scientific corps of earnest boilermakers and fitters and engineers who read papers on high explosives, and do their "heefing" in a wet picket-boat—mine-droppin'—at the ports. Then we've heavy artillery—recruited from the big manufacturing towns and shipbuilding yards—and ferocious hard-ridin' Yeomanry (they can ride—now), genteel, semi-genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till you come to the Home Defence Establishment—the young chaps knocked out under medical certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit behind hedges or clean up camp, and the old was-birds who've served their time but don't
