e your Father and I are not the parents to hold
you back. If I'm not on one of the same committees as Lady Harriet," she
added more brightly, "I really think I must call and let her know. She
would be so interested to hear that you are now a Cavalry officer."

"You might make it a Field-Marshal, Mater, while you're about it!" he
returned. "But, if you want to be accurate, you'd better describe me as
a bally trooper, because that's all I am, or likely to be."

"A trooper!" exclaimed his horrified mother. "Clarence, you _can't_ mean
to tell us you've enlisted as an ordinary common soldier! I couldn't
possibly permit you to throw yourself away like that, nor, I am sure,
will your Father! Sidney, of course you will insist on Clarence's
explaining at once to the Colonel, or whoever accepted him, that he
finds we object so strongly to his joining that he is obliged to
withdraw his offer."

"Certainly," said Mr. Stimpson. "Certainly. It's not too late yet, my
boy. You've only to say that we can't allow it--you're more badly wanted
at home--and they're sure to let you off."

"Can't quite see myself telling 'em that, Guv'nor. Even if I _wanted_ to
be let off--which I don't."

"After the way you've been brought up and everything!" cried Mrs.
Wibberley-Stimpson. "To sink to _this_! Has it occurred to you that you
would have to associate entirely with persons of the very lowest class?"

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen some of the Johnnies who passed the
Vet with me," he replied. "And, as to classes, all that tosh is done
away with now. There's only one class a fellow can't afford to associate
with--the slackers who ought to be in khaki and aren't. I couldn't have
stuck being in that crowd any longer, and I'm jolly lucky to have got
well out of it!"

"All the same, Clarence," lamented his Mother, "you _must_ see what a
terrible come-down it is for _you_, who not so very long ago were a
Crown Prince!"

"I thought we'd agreed to forget all that, Mater," he said, wincing
slightly. "Anyway, if I don't turn out a better Tommy than I did a
Prince, they won't have me in the regiment long. But I'm not going to
get the push this time, if I can help it. Come, Mater," he concluded,
"don't worry any more over what's done and can't be undone--just try and
make the best of it!"

But this was beyond Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson's philosophy just then. If
he had been leaving his comfortable home with a commission as
sub-lieutenant, she m