ers on the parade-ground during one hour every day. Others, of
their own accord, joined, and in a short time he had quite a large army
of volunteers. He spared no pains to perfect them. He got the Sergeant
to bring him a "Manual of Drill Instruction," and every spare moment he
spent in studying it attentively.

In a few weeks Ernest's squad surpassed that composed of the older boys
in the accuracy and rapidity of their movement; and Sergeant Dibble,
when he came, expressed his astonishment and delight on finding what
could be done when all set to work with a will to do it.

Ernest, too, gained great popularity, and many who had before rather
envied him now frankly acknowledged his talents and excellent qualities.
He himself also behaved very well. He did not set himself up above the
rest in consequence of what he had done and the applause he had gained,
but the moment the drill was over he became like one of the rest, and
took his hat, or his fishing-rod, or his hoop--though, by the by, he was
getting rather out of hoops--and went off shouting and laughing with all
the merry throng.

The greatest possible change was worked in Ellis. He no longer looked
like the same boy. The alteration in his appearance was almost as
striking as that which takes place in a country clown caught by a
recruiting sergeant, half drunk at a fair, as he rolls on, looking every
moment as if he was going to topple over, from public-house to
public-house, and when he has been under the drill-sergeant's hands for
a couple of years, and is turned into the trim, active, intelligent
soldier. At first, few who saw poor Ellis's awkward attempts could
possibly avoid laughing. How he rolled from side to side; how he stuck
out one foot, and changed it again and again, finding that it was the
wrong one; how, when the word "to the right-about" was given, he
invariably found himself grinning in the face of his left-hand man,
unless by good chance the latter had made the same mistake as himself,
when he became suddenly inspired with the hope that he had, for a
wonder, hit off the right thing. He soon found his hopes disappointed
by being summoned to repeat the movement, with a caution to do it
correctly. Then, on receiving the order to march, he nearly always
started off with his right foot instead of his left, and when he did put
out the left, he quickly changed it to the right, under the impression
that he must have made a mistake. Still his pe