es were called from the stable; my story was made good; and as I
stood in the ante-room adjusting my forage-cap I heard the beginning of
a tongue-walking which those non-commissioned officers were not likely
to forget.

'If you dare to bully my recruits again,' said the colonel, 'I'll break
the pair of you. I won't have my recruits bullied.'

I smiled at this; but I was not allowed to enjoy a further triumph. The
orderly sergeant wrathfully ordered me away, and I went back to my duty.
From that hour any question of comfort in the regiment was, of course,
over, and it would take a volume to tell the history of the shifts and
dodges which made life unbearable; though, of course, that history would
be worth neither the writing nor the reading. Most of the officers were
invariably kind and considerate; but there was one whom I never forgave
until I learned, years afterwards, that he was dead. It was my habit to
think and believe of him that he was the stupidest person that ever sat
upon the magisterial bench in any capacity, civil or military. A wider
experience of the world has modified that opinion, but he deserves a
place in this record for all that.

He was a pale-faced man, with a slight lisp; and the men despised
him because he had not the nerve even to handle them on church parade
without priming himself beforehand. I had been vaccinated by virtue of a
general order, and in a while my arm became swollen and very painful.
I stuck to duty as long as I could, and at last presented myself on
hospital parade to ask to be excused. The doctor, for some reason, was
absent, and, failing his order, I was compelled to join the ride in the
_manege_. It was a beastly morning, and the field was a mere bog. We
were splashed to the very buttons of our forage-caps, and the horses
were loaded with mud to the flaps of the saddles. I was tired and faint
enough before the ride was over, but my poor beast had to be groomed on
the return to stables, and I must needs set to work upon him. It was all
no good. I might as well have tried to carry him as to groom him, and I
represented my case to a non-commissioned officer, who straightway ran
me in. I passed the night in the guardroom, chilled and wet, and now
and then light-headed. Had I been at head-quarters the colonel would
undoubtedly have sent me to the infirmary, which was the proper place
for me. The lisping captain sent me to the cells.

'Ma-an,' he said, in a drawl which half the