e with pipers, big
drummer, side drummers, and corybantic drum-major.)

By eight o'clock, after a muddy tramp of four miles, we are assembled
at the two-hundred-yards firing point upon Number Three Range. The
range itself is little more than a drive cut through, a pine-wood.
It is nearly half a mile long. Across the far end runs a high
sandy embankment, decorated just below the ridge with, a row of
number-boards--one for each target. Of the targets themselves nothing
as yet is to be seen.

"Now then, let's get a move on!" suggests the Senior Captain briskly.
"Cockerell, ring up the butts, and ask Captain Wagstaffe to put up the
targets."

The alert Mr. Cockerell hurries to the telephone, which lives in a
small white-painted structure like a gramophone-stand. (It has been
left at the firing-point by the all-providing butt-party.) He turns
the call-handle smartly, takes the receiver out of the box, and
begins....

There is no need to describe the performance which ensues. All
telephone-users are familiar with it. It consists entirely of the
word "Hallo!" repeated _crescendo_ and _furioso_ until exhaustion
supervenes.

Presently Mr. Cockerell reports to the Captain--

"Telephone out of order, sir."

"I never knew a range telephone that wasn't," replies the Captain,
inspecting the instrument. "Still, you might give this one a sporting
chance, anyhow. It isn't a _wireless_ telephone, you know! Corporal
Kemp, connect that telephone for Mr. Cockerell."

A marble-faced N.C.O. kneels solemnly upon the turf and raises a
small iron trapdoor--hitherto overlooked by the omniscient
Cockerell--revealing a cavity some six inches deep, containing an
electric plug-hole. Into this he thrusts the terminal of the telephone
wire. Cockerell, scarlet in the face, watches him indignantly.

Telephonic communication between firing-point and butts is now
established. That is to say, whenever Mr. Cockerell rings the bell
some one in the butts courteously rings back. Overtures of a more
intimate nature are greeted either with stony silence or another
fantasia on the bell.

Meanwhile the captain is superintending firing arrangements.

"Are the first details ready to begin?" he shouts.

"Quite ready, sir," runs the reply down the firing line.

The Captain now comes to the telephone himself. He takes the receiver
from Cockerell with masterful assurance.

"Hallo, there!" he calls. "I want to speak to Captain Wagstaffe."

"Honkle yan