"
"I can, fortunately, put you in the right way without difficulty. There is
a man here who has made a business of buying up uniforms. I believe he
sends most of them to England, where they would certainly fetch a good
deal more than he gave for them; but I know that he keeps a stock by him,
for there is a constant demand. The work out in the country here does for
a uniform in no time, and many men who, before marching for the frontier,
parted with all their extra kit for a song, are glad enough to write to
him for a fresh outfit at three times the price he gave them two or three
months before."
"I wonder they don't send their surplus outfit back to England direct,"
Terence said.
"Well, you see, there is the risk of the things being lost or stolen on
the way home, or being ruined by damp before they are wanted again.
Besides, a man thinks there is no saying whether he shall ever want them
again, or how long the war will last, and is glad to take anything he can
get to save himself any further bother about them."
Terence was fortunate in being able to buy an undress uniform, with
facings similar to those of his own regiment, and to lay in a stock of
underclothes at a very much lower price than he could have purchased them
for even at home. Before leaving the shop he put on his new uniform and
left the old one to be thrown away.
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