As for Mrs.
McGillicuddy, she was openly on the side of Kettle and against the Colonel, and shrewdly surmised exactly what had happened about the enlistment, and also that Sergeant McGillicuddy was implicated with the other two sergeants in the outrage.

Mrs.McGillicuddy boldly propounded this theory to Mrs.Fortescue while the latter was dressing for dinner on the first evening of Kettle's incarceration.

The Colonel, in the next room, going through the same process of dressing, could hear every word through the open door.
"It's Patrick McGillicuddy that had a hand in it, mum," said Mrs.
McGillicuddy wrathfully.

"He's been takin' rises out of the naygur, as he calls Kettle, for twenty years, and he seen Sergeant Gully and Sergeant Halligan draggin' poor Kettle along to the riding hall.

I seen Kettle when he run out, and McGillicuddy was a standin' off, a-laffin' fit to kill himself, and I know that Gully and Halligan has been jokin' Kettle and makin' him believe he has enlisted in the aviation corps and will have to go flyin', and Kettle's scared stiff." "Poor Kettle," said Mrs.Fortescue softly, clasping her pearls about her white throat.