essor) and brought up
to date by OLIVER CROMWELL. It has dungeons (for keeping the butter
cool), loop-holes (through which to pour hot porridge on invaders),
an oubliette (for bores) and a portcullis.

In spite of these conveniences our fortress is past its prime and a
modern burglar would treat it as a joke. It is so weak in its joints
that when the wind blows it shakes like a jelly, and we have to shave
with safety-razors.

In a small villa opposite lives Freddy, our married subaltern, and
Mrs. Freddy.

On a patch of turf up a neighbouring lane Oswald and Co. took up their
residence this summer.

The troopers called him Oswald for some unknown reason, but I doubt if
that was his baptismal name, and I doubt if he was ever baptized.

Oswald was a tall bony grizzled child of the Open.

Years ago he would have been dismissed briefly as a tramp, but we know
better now; we have read our Georgian poets and we know that such folk
do not perambulate the country stealing fowls and firing ricks from
any dislike of settled labour, but because they have heard the call of
far horizons, _belles etoiles_ and great spaces.

The Co. consisted of a woolly donkey which carried Oswald's
portmanteau when he trekked, and a hairy dog which provided him with
company and conversation.

The donkey browsed, unfettered, about the roadside, taking the weather
as it came; but Oswald and the dog, degenerates, sheltered under a
wigwam of saplings and old sacks.

The wigwam being four feet long and Oswald six, he had to telescope
like a tortoise to get fully under cover; sometimes he forgot his feet
and left them outside all night in the dew, but, as he had no boots to
spoil, this didn't matter much.

Not having any business to attend to he lay abed very late. Our
troopers, riding at ease _en route_ to the drill grounds, would toss
their lighted cigarette-ends at the protruding bare feet. A grizzled
head telescoping out of the other end of the wigwam and a husky voice
calling down celestial fury upon them, would signalise a hit.

The Adjutant was for having Oswald moved on; we should be missing
things presently, he warned--saddle-blankets, rifles, horses, perhaps
the portcullis. However, the O.C. would have none of it; he maintained
that this constant menace at our gates kept the sentries on the _qui
vive_ and accustomed them to practically Active Service conditions.

So all the summer the wigwam remained on the turf-patch and the
sent