"ride" halted of its own accord in awed amazement, Dam had
longed to tell him so and beg him to return to his place ere worse
befell....

"I've 'ad enough, you bull-'eaded brute," shouted poor Muggins,
leaving his horse and advancing menacingly upon his (incalculably)
superior officer, "an' fer two damns I'd break yer b---- jaw, I would.
You ..."

Even as the Rough-Riding Corporal and two other men were dragging the
struggling, raving recruit to the door, _en route_ for the Guard-room,
entered the great remote, dread Riding-Master himself.

"What's this?" inquired Hon. Captain Style, Riding-Master of the
Queen's Greys, strict, kind-hearted martinet.

Salute, and explanations from the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major.

Torrent of accusation and incoherent complaint and threat from the
baited Muggins.

"Mount that horse," says the Riding-Master.

"I'll go to Clink first," gasps Muggins. "I'll go to 'Ell first."

"No. _Afterwards,_" replies the Riding-Master and sends the
Rough-Riding Corporal for the backboard--dread instrument of
equestrian persuasion.

Muggins is forcibly mounted, put in the lunging ring and sent round
and round till he throws himself off at full gallop and lies crying
and sobbing like a child--utterly broken.

Riding-Master smiles, allows Muggins to grow calmer, accepts his
apologies and promises, shows him he has had his Hell _after_, as
promised, and that it is a better punishment than one that leaves him
with a serious "crime" entry on his Defaulter's Sheet for life....
That vile and damning sheet that records the youthful peccadilloes and
keeps it a life-long punishment after its own severe punishment....
To the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major he quietly remarks: "No good
non-com _makes_ crimes ... and don't forget that the day of
riding-school brutality is passing. You can carry a man further than
you can kick him."

And the interrupted lesson continues.

"Sit _back_ and you can't come off. Nobody falls off backwards." ...

Poor "Old Sit-Back"! (as he was called from his constant cry)--after
giving that order and guarantee daily for countless days--was killed
in the riding-school by coming off backwards from the stripped saddle
of a rearing horse--(which promptly fell upon him and crushed his
chest)--that had never reared before and would not have reared then,
it was said, but for the mysterious introduction, under its saddle, of
a remarkably "foreign" body.

Memories ...!

How certai