gienic manner.
But even those who remembered the last Life Guards and Lancers who
disappeared in 1912 must have known at a glance that this was not, and
never had been, an English uniform; and this conviction would have
been heightened by the yellow aquiline face, like Dante carved in
bronze, which rose, crowned with white hair, out of the green military
collar, a keen and distinguished, but not an English face.

The magnificence with which the green-clad gentleman walked down the
centre of the road would be something difficult to express in human
language. For it was an ingrained simplicity and arrogance, something
in the mere carriage of the head and body, which made ordinary moderns
in the street stare after him; but it had comparatively little to do
with actual conscious gestures or expression. In the matter of these
merely temporary movements, the man appeared to be rather worried and
inquisitive, but he was inquisitive with the inquisitiveness of a
despot and worried as with the responsibilities of a god. The men who
lounged and wondered behind him followed partly with an astonishment
at his brilliant uniform, that is to say, partly because of that
instinct which makes us all follow one who looks like a madman, but
far more because of that instinct which makes all men follow (and
worship) any one who chooses to behave like a king. He had to so
sublime an extent that great quality of royalty--an almost imbecile
unconsciousness of everybody, that people went after him as they do
after kings--to see what would be the first thing or person he would
take notice of. And all the time, as we have said, in spite of his
quiet splendour, there was an air about him as if he were looking for
somebody; an expression of inquiry.

Suddenly that expression of inquiry vanished, none could tell why, and
was replaced by an expression of contentment. Amid the rapt attention
of the mob of idlers, the magnificent green gentleman deflected
himself from his direct course down the centre of the road and walked
to one side of it. He came to a halt opposite to a large poster of
Colman's Mustard erected on a wooden hoarding. His spectators almost
held their breath.

He took from a small pocket in his uniform a little penknife; with
this he made a slash at the stretched paper. Completing the rest of
the operation with his fingers, he tore off a strip or rag of paper,
yellow in colour and wholly irregular in outline. Then for the first
time