Sergeant-Major!"
"Sirr?"
"Private McNulty!"
After the usual formalities, enter Private McNulty and escort. Private
McNulty is a small scared-looking man with a dirty face.
"Private McNulty, sirr!" announces the Sergeant-Major to the Company
Commander, with the air of a popular lecturer on entomology placing a
fresh insect under the microscope.
Captain Blaikie addresses the shivering culprit--
"_Private McNulty; charged with destroying Government property_.
Corporal Mather!"
Corporal Mather clears his throat, and assuming the wooden expression
and fish-like gaze common to all public speakers who have learned
their oration by heart, begins--
"Sirr, on the night of the sixth inst. I was Orderly Sergeant. Going
round the prisoner's room about the hour of nine-thirty I noticed that
his three biscuits had been cut and slashed, appariently with a knife
or other instrument."
"What did you do?"
"Sirr, I inquired of the men in the room who was it had gone for to do
this. Sirr, they said it was the prisoner."
Two witnesses are called. Both, certify, casting grieved and virtuous
glances at the prisoner, that this outrage upon the property of His
Majesty was the work of Private McNulty.
To the unsophisticated Bobby Little this charge appears rather a
frivolous one. If you may not cut or slash a biscuit, what _are_ you
to do with it? Swallow it whole?
"Private McNulty?" queries the Captain.
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