not a gentleman. "Don't dismount again, Muggins--or is it
Juggins?--without permission" when some poor fellow comes on his head
as his horse (bare of saddle and bridle) refuses at a jump. "Get up
(and SIT BACK) you--you--hen, you pierrot, you _Aard Vark,_ you
after-thought, you refined entertainer, you pimple, you performing
water-rat, you mistake, you _byle_, you drip, you worm-powder....
What? You think your leg's broken? Well--_you've got another_, haven't
you? Get up and break that. Keep your neck till you get a stripped
saddle and no reins.... Don't embrace the horse like that, you
pawn-shop, I can hear it blushing.... Send for the key and get inside
it.... Keep those fine feet forward. Keep them _forward_ (and SIT
BACK), Juggins or Muggins, or else take them into the Infantry--what
they were meant for by the look of them. Now then--over you go without
falling if I have to keep you here all night.... Look at _that_" (as
the poor fellow is thrown across the jump by the cunning brute that
knows its rider has neither whip, spurs, saddle nor reins). "What? The
_horse_ refuse? One of _my_ horses _refuse? If the man'll jump, the
horse'll jump._ (All of you repeat that after me and don't forget it.)
No. It's the _man_ refuses, not the poor horse. Don't you know the
ancient proverb 'Faint heart ne'er took fair jump'....? What's the
good of coming here if your heart's the size of your eye-ball instead
of being the size of your fist? _Refuse?_ Put him over it, man. _Put_
him over--SIT BACK and lift him, and _put_ him over. I'll give you a
thousand pounds if he refuses _me_...."

Then the day when poor bullied, baited, nervous Muggins had reached
his limit and come to the end of his tether--or thought he had.
Bumped, banged, bucketed, thrown, sore from head to foot, raw-kneed,
laughed at, lashed by the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major's cruel tongue,
blind and sick with dust and pain and rage, he had at last turned his
horse inward from his place in the ride to the centre of the School,
and dismounted.

How quaintly the tyrant's jaw had dropped in sheer astonishment, and
how his face had purpled with rage when he realized that his eyes had
not deceived him and that the worm had literally turned--without
orders.

Indian, African, and Egyptian service, disappointment, and a bad wife
had left Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major Blount with a dangerous temper.

Poor silly Muggins. He had been Juggins indeed on that occasion, and,
as the