ous career.

I have the honour to be, sir,

Your most humble and obedient servant,

THE AUTHOR.

WEYBRIDGE, _April 1900._

CONTENTS

PAGE
CHAPTER I
AN INTRODUCTORY FRAGMENT 1

CHAPTER II
THE FAMILY 6

CHAPTER III
HOME LIFE AND HOLIDAYS 16

CHAPTER IV
CARTHUSIAN 37

CHAPTER V
THE DASHING HUSSAR 55

CHAPTER VI
HUNTER 73

CHAPTER VII
SCOUT 90

CHAPTER VIII
THE FLANNEL-SHIRT LIFE 103

CHAPTER IX
ROAD-MAKER AND BUILDER 119

CHAPTER X
PUTTING OUT FIRE 135

CHAPTER XI
IN RAGS AND TATTERS 158

CHAPTER XII
THE REGIMENTAL OFFICER 172

CHAPTER XIII
GOAL-KEEPER 192

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Major-General R.S.S. Baden-Powell _Frontispiece_

Professor Baden Powell 7

Mrs. Baden-Powell 11

B.-P. reflecting on the After-deck of the _Pearl_ 21

Rev. William Haig-Brown, LL.D. 41

The Dashing Hussar (B.-P. at 21) 61

"Beetle" 79

The Family on Board the _Pearl_ 107

"_Viret in AEternum_" 179

Goal-Keeper 201

CHAPTER I

AN INTRODUCTORY FRAGMENT ON NO ACCOUNT TO BE SKIPPED

You will be the first to grant me, honoured sir, that after
earnestness of purpose, that is to say "keenness," there is no quality
of the mind so essential to the even-balance as humour. The
schoolmaster without this humanising virtue never yet won your love
and admiration, and to miss your affection and loyalty is to lose one
of life's chiefest delights. You are as quick to detect the humbug who
hides his mediocrity behind an affecta