and all
irregular horse. Like everything else in the service, it has to be
learned; but unlike many things, it is never forgotten, and remains on
the body till death.

The great beam-roofed mess room of the White Hussars was a sight to be
remembered. All the mess plate was on the long table--the same table
that had served up the bodies of five dead officers in a forgotten
fight long and long ago--the dingy, battered standards faced the door
of entrance, clumps of winter roses lay between the silver
candlesticks, the portraits of eminent officers deceased looked down
on their successors from between the heads of sambhur[12],
nilghai[13], maikhor, and, pride of all the mess, two grinning
snow-leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months' leave that he
might have spent in England instead of on the road to Thibet, and the
daily risk of his life on ledge, snowslide, and glassy grass slope.

The servants, in spotless white muslin and the crest of their
regiments on the brow of their turbans, waited behind their masters,
who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the White Hussars and the
cream and silver of the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch's dull green
uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes
made up for it. He was fraternizing effusively with the captain of the
Lushkar team, who was wondering how many of Dirkovitch's Cossacks his
own long, lathy down-countrymen could account for in a fair charge.
But one does not speak of these things openly.

The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band played
between the courses, as is the immemorial custom, till all tongues
ceased for a moment with the removal of the dinner slips and the First
Toast of Obligation, when the colonel, rising, said, "Mr. Vice, the
Queen," and Little Mildred from the bottom of the table answered, "The
Queen, God bless her!" and the big spurs clanked as the big men heaved
themselves up and drank the Queen, upon whose pay they were falsely
supposed to pay their mess bills. That sacrament of the mess never
grows old, and never ceases to bring a lump into the throat of the
listener wherever he be, by land or by sea. Dirkovitch rose with his
"brothers glorious," but he could not understand. No one but an
officer can understand what the toast means; and the bulk have more
sentiment than comprehension. It all comes to the same in the end, as
the enemy said when he was wriggling on a lance point. Immediately
after the li