d the ample hostess of
the Britstown Carlton.

"Who is the commandant?" queried the brigadier.

"Major Jones," came the answer.

"Well, I'm----! this beats cock-fighting. This is the result of
martial law and the control of the liquor licence!--a well-fed major
reserves seats, while a hungry general stands!" and the general and
staff of the New Cavalry Brigade occupied the reserved table, and
became guests of the hotel in common with thirty dishevelled troopers,
who had passed into the hotel, representing themselves to the dazed
militia sentry at the door as officers. The food may not have been of
the best, but it was in abundance; and in a quarter of an hour the
brigadier was prepared to study his instructions.

_B._ "Now, Mr Intelligence, since they see fit to remove my chief of
the staff, you have got to be maid-of-all-work. You and I have got to
run this brigade until the brigade-major turns up. He must be a bit
of a 'slow-bird,' I think, or he would have been here with the rest of
my hoplites by this. Do you know anything about staff work?"

_Intelligence Officer._ "Nothing, sir!"

_B._ "So much the better; you will then have a mind ripe for tuition.
Now I will give you a lesson. You have two pockets in your tunic. The
right pocket will be the receptacle for 'business' telegrams, the left
for 'bunkum.' Now for the telegrams!"

It would be beyond the scope of this sketch to give the contents of
the one hundred and four telegrams which had accumulated in
forty-eight hours. It will suffice to state that ninety-seven were
relegated to the "bunkum" pocket, and seven retained as conveying
intelligent orders worthy of consideration. It is superfluous to
mention that the whole of the messages sent by the local intelligence
departments and by the De Wet expert were dismissed as "bunkum," often
without perusal. As the brigadier pertinently remarked: "I suppose
that the poor fellows have to justify their existence as members of
the great brain-system of the army. The only means by which they come
into prominence is by squandering the public money, and they only hurt
those who take their information seriously. They do you no harm if you
consistently ignore their existence, and don't worry to read their
messages."

The sum-total of the messages of instruction which the brigadier had
so quaintly filed as "business-material" was information from the
Chief, Pretoria, that the plan of the operations was changed. That our