est, and report on the state of
the coast-defences; and during the interview, as the Adjutant-General
glanced down the Colonel's list of batteries, his eye fell on the name
'Looe'; whereby being reminded of the letter, he pulled it out and read it
for his visitor's amusement.

You may say then that Colonel Taubmann had fair warning. Yet it was far
from preparing him for the welcome he received, three weeks later, when he
drove down to Plymouth to hold his inspection, due notice of which had
been received by Captain Pond ten days before.

"What the devil's the meaning of this?" demanded Colonel Taubmann as his
post-boy reined up on the knap of the hill above the town. By 'this' he
meant a triumphal arch, packed with evergreens, and adorned with the motto
'_Death to the Invader_' in white letters on a scarlet ground.

He repeated the question to Captain Pond, who appeared a minute later in
full regimentals advancing up the hill with his Die-hards behind him and a
large and excited crowd in the rear.

"Good-morning, sir!" Captain Pond halted beneath the archway and saluted,
beaming with pride and satisfaction and hospitable goodwill. "I am
addressing Colonel Taubmann, I believe? Permit me to bid you welcome to
Looe, Colonel, and to congratulate you upon this perfect weather.
Nature, as one might say, has endued her gayest garb. You have enjoyed a
pleasant drive, I hope?"

"What the devil is the meaning of this, sir?" repeated the Colonel.

Captain Pond looked up at the motto and smiled. "The reference is to
Bonaparte. Dear me, I trust--I sincerely trust--you did not even for a
moment mistake the application? You must pardon us, Colonel. We are
awkward perhaps in our country way--awkward no doubt; but hearty, I assure
you."

The Colonel, though choleric, was a good-natured man, and too much of a
gentleman to let his temper loose, though sorely tried, when at the bottom
of the hill the Die-hards halted his carriage that he might receive not
only an address from the Doctor as Mayor, but a large bouquet from the
hands of the Doctor's four-year-old daughter, little Miss Sophronia, whom
her mother led forward amid the plaudits of the crowd. (The Doctor, I
should explain, was a married man of but five years' standing, and his
wife and he doted on one another and on little Miss Sophronia, their only
child.) This item of the programme, carefully rehearsed beforehand, and
executed pat on the moment with the prettie