colleagues as a "flea-bitten
fellow standing about eighteen hoofs"; but when he is not being technical
I like to think that he sums me up to himself as a nice man. At any rate
I am not allowed to wear spurs, and that must weigh with a horse a good
deal.

I have no real right to Toby. The Signalling Officer's official mount is
a bicycle, but a bicycle in this weather--! And there _is_ Toby, and
somebody must ride him, and, as I point out to the other subalterns, it
would only cause jealousy if one of _them_ rode him, and--"

"Why would it create more jealousy than if _you_ do?" asked one of them.

"Well," I said, "you're the officer commanding platoon number--"

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen. Now, why should the officer commanding the fifteenth platoon
ride a horse when the officer commanding the nineteenth--"

He reminded me that there were only sixteen platoons in a battalion. It's
such a long time since I had anything to do with platoons that I forget.

"All right, we'll say the sixteenth. Why shouldn't _he_ have a horse? Of
all the unjust--Well, you see what recriminations it would lead to. Now I
don't say I'm more valuable than a platoon-commander or more effective on
a horse, but, at any rate, there aren't sixteen of me. There's only one
Signalling Officer, and if there _is_ a spare horse over--"

"What about the Bombing Officer?" said O.C. Platoon 15 carelessly.

I had quite forgotten the Bombing Officer. Of course he is a specialist
too.

"Yes, quite so, but if you would only think a little," I said, thinking
hard all the time, "you would--well, put it this way. The range of a
Mills bomb is about fifty yards; the range of a field telephone is
several miles. Which of us is more likely to require a horse?"

"_And_ the Sniping officer?" he went on dreamily.

This annoyed me.

"You don't shoot snipe from horseback," I said sharply. "You're mixing up
shooting and hunting, my lad. And in any case there are reasons, special
reasons, why I ride Toby--reasons of which you know nothing."

Here are the reasons:--

1. I think I have more claim to a horse called Toby than has a
contributor to "Our Feathered Friends" or whatever paper the Sniping
Officer writes for.

2. When I joined the Army, Celia was inconsolable. I begged her to keep a
stiff upper lip, to which she replied that she could do it better if I
promised not to keep a bristly one. I pointed out that the country wanted
bristles; and though, between ourse