of
satisfaction, but when the General had thoroughly grasped the story, and
knew who Strickland was, he began to puff and blow in the saddle, and
nearly rolled off with laughing. He said Strickland deserved a V. C.,
if it were only for putting on a sais's blanket. Then he called himself
names, and vowed that he deserved a thrashing, but he was too old to
take it from Strickland. Then he complimented Miss Youghal on her lover.
The scandal of the business never struck him; for he was a nice old man,
with a weakness for flirtations. Then he laughed again, and said
that old Youghal was a fool. Strickland let go of the cob's head,
and suggested that the General had better help them, if that was his
opinion. Strickland knew Youghal's weakness for men with titles and
letters after their names and high official position. "It's rather like
a forty-minute farce," said the General, "but begad, I WILL help, if
it's only to escape that tremendous thrashing I deserved. Go along
to your home, my sais-Policeman, and change into decent kit, and I'll
attack Mr. Youghal. Miss Youghal, may I ask you to canter home and wait?"

. . . . . . . . .

About seven minutes later, there was a wild hurroosh at the Club. A
sais, with a blanket and head-rope, was asking all the men he knew: "For
Heaven's sake lend me decent clothes!" As the men did not recognize him,
there were some peculiar scenes before Strickland could get a hot bath,
with soda in it, in one room, a shirt here, a collar there, a pair
of trousers elsewhere, and so on. He galloped off, with half the Club
wardrobe on his back, and an utter stranger's pony under him, to the
house of old Youghal. The General, arrayed in purple and fine linen, was
before him. What the General had said Strickland never knew, but Youghal
received Strickland with moderate civility; and Mrs. Youghal, touched
by the devotion of the transformed Dulloo, was almost kind. The General
beamed, and chuckled, and Miss Youghal came in, and almost before old
Youghal knew where he was, the parental consent had been wrenched out
and Strickland had departed with Miss Youghal to the Telegraph Office
to wire for his kit. The final embarrassment was when an utter stranger
attacked him on the Mall and asked for the stolen pony.

So, in the end, Strickland and Miss Youghal were married, on the strict
understanding that Strickland should drop his old ways, and stick to
Departmental routine, which pa