it is straight down the main street, and then the
first to the left. It would be impossible to miss it."

_I. O._ "What do you belong to?"

_Ord._ "I don't quite know what I belong to now. I came out originally
with the 218th Company Imperial Yeomanry; but they have gone back
home."

_I. O._ "Then what are you doing out here now?"

_Ord._ "Well, you see, sir, I came to the general as orderly about
four months ago, and I liked being with him so much that I did not
rejoin the company. As a matter of fact, we were away down in Calvinia
District; I don't quite see how I could have got back to them, even if
the general would have let me go. I haven't seen the company since I
was wounded at Wittebergen seven months ago. I joined the general from
Deelfontein Hospital!"

_I. O._ "I hope that your billet has been kept open for you in
England."

_Ord._ "I sincerely trust it has, sir; but I have missed a season's
hunting. I don't intend to miss another if I can help it."

_I. O._ "The devil you don't. What do you do at home?"

_Ord._ "I hunt four days a-week in the winter, and in the----"

_I. O._ "I mean, what is your job?"

_Ord._ "I haven't much of a job, sir; I'm the junior partner in an
engineering firm, and as we do some very big things in contracts,
there isn't much left for me to do except amuse myself!"

_I. O._ "Then whatever made you come out in the ranks?"

_Ord._ "It suits me, sir. I am not fond of responsibility: besides, if
every one who could afford it had taken a commission in our company,
we should have been all officers, with no one to command!"

_I. O._ "I call it most sporting of you."

_Ord._ "No; not exactly sporting. It was no idea of sport that brought
me out here. It was a sense of duty. Were you out here, sir, during
the Black Week--the Colenso-Magersfontein period? You were. Then you
have not realised, and you never can realise, what we in England went
through during that period. I went down to my stables one morning, and
my groom came up to me and asked if he might leave at once. In answer
to my look of surprise, he said, 'It's this way, sir: I feel that the
time has come when we shall want every man who can ride and shoot to
defend the country. I can do both, and the country is not going to be
defeated because I can ride and shoot, and won't. I want to join the
Yeomanry!' I let him go, and thought over his estimate of the
situation all day. If the country's honour lay in my groom's ha