orse. My ugly sergeant had found a collaborateur, who wanted to know
what the blank blank I meant by leaving my horse to shiver in the cold
whilst I loitered about this customary duty. I set to work upon the
horse at once, and, as the collaborating sergeant disappeared at one
stable door, my ugly friend turned up at the other, wanting to know
why the blank blank I had not oiled my stirrup irons. I took up the
discarded oil-rag with all activity; the ugly man vanished, and his
collaborateur appeared at the door on the other side of the stables.
"Now, didn't I tell you not to let your horse catch cold?" said he.
"Haven't you the brains to go and groom him?" I had learned long since
the wisdom of silence, and I began to groom with a will. When my ugly
friend once more appeared with a command "to the stirrup irons;" back
I went, forboding the disaster which swiftly came. The accommodating
friend of the ugly man swooped down, and I was haled before the officer
on duty on a charge of having thrice neglected to obey a given order.
But the colonel of our regiment, the late Sir Charles Cameron Shute,
since then for many years Member for Brighton, was at headquarters. He
was a good deal of a martinet, but he was justice incarnate. I told
my story, and I offered him my witnesses. His word to me was a simple
right-about-face and march; but, as I put on my forage cap in the
anteroom, I heard him thundering at the accusing sergeants to the effect
that he would not have his recruits bullied, that he would not endure to
have plots laid against them, and that on any repetition of the manouvre
now exposed, he would break the pair of them, and return them to the
ranks.

And here occurs what is to me a very curious reminiscence. A dear old
great-aunt of mine had purchased my discharge, and had furnished me
with money to go home. We were then stationed at Ballincollig, in County
Cork, and I had secured a suit of civilian toggery from a Cork tailor. I
was waiting for the jaunting car which was to carry me to town, when my
ugly friend heaved in sight, and, finding a man in civilian dress with
the undeniable air of the barrack-yard upon him, and being, as I guess,
a little short-sighted, he saluted me as he would have saluted an
officer in passing. Discovering his error, he was very angry, and he
began to cite all the pains and penalties to which a man was liable who
smoked a cigar within a given distance of some powder-magazine which
then exi