f the pass.

"Here, I say," cried the owner of the just-mentioned name, a thin,
wiry-looking fellow, whom so far drill and six months in the North-west
Territory of Her Majesty's Indian dominions had not made
muscular-looking; though, for the matter of that, he did not differ much
from his companions, who in appearance were of the thorough East-end
Cockney type--that rather degenerate class of lads who look fifteen or
sixteen at most when twenty. Stamina seemed to be wanting, chests
looked narrow, and their tunics covered gaunt and angular bodies, while
their spiked white helmets, though they fitted their heads, had rather
an extinguisher-like effect over the thin, hollow-cheeked, beardless
faces.

Defects, all these, that would naturally die out; but at the time now
under consideration any newspaper writer would have been justified in
calling them a regiment of boys.

But, boy-like, it did not trouble them, for, apparently as fresh as when
they had started hours before, they seemed to be revelling in the
wonderful air of the mountain region, and to be as full of antics as a
party of schoolfellows out for a day. Songs had been sung, each with a
roaring chorus; tricks had been surreptitiously played on the "pass it
on" principle--a lad in the rear tilting the helmet of the file in front
over his eyes, or giving him a sounding spank on the shoulder with the
above admonition, when it was taken with a grin and passed on right away
to the foremost rank; while the commissioned officers seemed to be
peculiarly blind and deaf so long as their lads marched well, and there
was no falling-out of done-up fellows waiting for the ambulance to
overtake them for the rest of the march.

"Here, I say," cried Private Gedge, "I ain't a-going to drop no coppers
in no blessed hats when that there band comes round. They don't 'arf
play."

"Don't keep _on_," said the file on his left.

"Play? Yah! Why, we might jest as well have a dozen of them
tom-tomming niggers in front saying `Shallabala' as they taps the skins
with their brown fingers."

"You are a chap, Bill," said another. "Talk about yer Syety for Cruelty
to Hanimals! Why, yer orter be fined. It's all I can do to keep wind
enough to climb up here, let alone having to blow a brass
traction-engine, or even a fife."

"Gahn! They're used to it. They don't half play. Pass the word on for
`Brish Grannydiers.'"

Bang--bang--bang--bang! Four distinct beats of the big dr