And so, in some parts of the barracks, license, not liberty, was the popular word. The great point of interest by day and by night being how to defy the blue book, and not get caught.
The leaders were bright men, some of them; personable, pleasant to talk to, fair mathematicians, and capital cooks over the gas-light. Several had friends who sent them money, sweets, mince pies, and tobacco: all smuggled in by unscrupulous outside hands. And these dainties were freely dispensed by the happy owners.
As to the rest, they were light fingered enough for pick-pockets, and could abstract and convey to barracks anything--except "Sammy"--from the mess-hall table; and I have even been told that this one exception lost its place that year.
But so far, you could charge things pretty fairly upon fun, and the delightful exercise of skill. If, as was alleged, they carried off two pounds of sugar for every lemon they got hold of, still, one must do something; and as they said, "the sugar was all paid for out of their own allowance."
A much graver thing--perhaps the worst in the whole business--was the bribing enlisted men. Some free lances, indeed, were much too fond of "chancing" it, to do their frisky deeds by proxy. They fetched for themselves what they wanted, with a daring of which I may not tell. But others would get the sentry at the gate to pass things in; or a bandsman to bring all sorts of contraband goods from the Falls. Other people helped, but a mess-hall waiter could only lose his place and run away, while the sentinels were in trust.
Now Magnus Kindred had not been so brought up, and the sight and hearing of certain things at first made him indignant. But they looked lighter coloured the fifteenth time than the first. The memory of Mr. Upright's words also faded out, and when springtime came, and days grew long and nights were bright, he had fallen back into much the old way, and was training with (or training) the wrong crowd. And he was so agile and wary that he never got caught, which was perhaps his loss.
"I don't see how you work it, Kin," Rig complained one day. "You do everything you have a mind to, and yet even Towser will swear you in for sweet cream every time. But as for me, if both my shoe toes aren't blacked exactly alike, I'm skinned to a certainty."