is your School corps only.
Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather
wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was
not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly
of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved
name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the
local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was
a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing,
remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on the
way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury,
and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, it
contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian,
who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept
everything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon was
just putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the properties
in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke
enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns
and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance,
and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard
against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse
proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor.
Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits
were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of
general agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretaker
at the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train?
As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friend
really was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask him
than I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for,
to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He told
me that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the station
with mutual regrets.

* * * * *

The year 1867 was conspicuously a year of Fenian activity. The
termination of the Civil War in America had thrown out of employment
a great many seasoned soldiers of various nationalities, who had
served for five years in the American armies. Among these were
General Cluseret, educated at Saint-Cyr, trained by Garibaldi,
and by some good critics esteemed "the most consummate soldier of
the day." The Fenians now began to dream not merely of isolated
outrages, but of an