got at the village shop.

Then we watched for the soldiers, and after three days they went by
again, by twos and twos as before. It was A1.

We waved our flag, and we shouted. We gave them three cheers. Oswald can
shout loudest. So as soon as the first man was level with us (not the
advance guard, but the first of the battery)--he shouted--

'Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!' And then we waved the
flag, and bellowed. Oswald stood on the wall to bellow better, and Denny
waved the flag because he was a visitor, and so politeness made us let
him enjoy the fat of whatever there was going.

The soldiers did not cheer that day; they only grinned and kissed their
hands.

The next day we all got up as much like soldiers as we could. H. O. and
Noel had tin swords, and we asked Albert's uncle to let us wear some of
the real arms that are on the wall in the dining-room.

And he said, 'Yes', if we would clean them up afterwards. But we
jolly well cleaned them up first with Brooke's soap and brick dust and
vinegar, and the knife polish (invented by the great and immortal Duke
of Wellington in his spare time when he was not conquering Napoleon.
Three cheers for our Iron Duke!), and with emery paper and wash leather
and whitening. Oswald wore a cavalry sabre in its sheath. Alice and the
Mouse had pistols in their belts, large old flint-locks, with bits
of red flannel behind the flints. Denny had a naval cutlass, a very
beautiful blade, and old enough to have been at Trafalgar. I hope
it was. The others had French sword-bayonets that were used in the
Franco-German war. They are very bright when you get them bright, but
the sheaths are hard to polish. Each sword-bayonet has the name on the
blade of the warrior who once wielded it. I wonder where they are now.
Perhaps some of them died in the war. Poor chaps! But it is a very long
time ago.

I should like to be a soldier. It is better than going to the best
schools, and to Oxford afterwards, even if it is Balliol you go to.
Oswald wanted to go to South Africa for a bugler, but father would not
let him. And it is true that Oswald does not yet know how to bugle,
though he can play the infantry 'advance', and the 'charge' and the
'halt' on a penny whistle. Alice taught them to him with the piano, out
of the red book Father's cousin had when he was in the Fighting Fifth.
Oswald cannot play the 'retire', and he would scorn to do so. But I
suppose a bugler has to play