nd march up and down
like an army. They march beautifully, keeping step all the time, and
wheeling round just as the men do, for they are carefully drilled. Then
the band plays, for they have a capital band, and they all go to church.
During the service the boys are very good and still as mice, because
they are well trained. But it is not long. It is a bright, short
service, with a sermon, quite short and simple, so that the boys can
understand it. There are many hymns, and when it is over they go back
for dinner. Dinner is very important, but before I tell you about that I
will tell you what they get to eat for all their meals. They have cocoa
in the mornings for breakfast and bread-and-jam or bread-and-butter, and
they have the same again at tea-time. On extra days they get cake too.
For dinner on Sundays in winter they have pork, with potatoes and
apple-sauce. I don't know if you like apple-sauce, but the soldier boys
do, and they think it is waste to eat it with pork; so they leave it
until they have finished their meat, and then spread it on their bread
and eat it separately. Afterwards there are plum-puddings, an ordinary
big plum-pudding for every table, and at each table there are eight
boys. Each boy who sits at the head of a table marches out and marches
in again carrying a plum-pudding, which he sets down on his own table;
then he takes a knife and cuts it neatly across and across, making four
pieces; then he cuts it across and across again, and makes eight pieces,
and he gives each boy a piece, and there is no more plum-pudding. It is
a pretty big bit that, an eighth of a plum-pudding, but it all goes
somewhere; and the boy who cuts it has to be very careful to see that he
does it quite fairly, so that no one gets more than anyone else. I think
the plum-pudding and the pork must be a good mixture, for you hardly
ever see elsewhere such bright-looking faces as there are here.

There is a big playground, with plenty of room for games and sports, and
there are long bedrooms, called dormitories, with rows of neat little
beds. It is a good thing to think that these boys are growing up happy
and good, and passing on into the army to be among England's brave
soldiers. When it was decided to move this school into the country many
people were very sorry, but all agreed it was better for the boys.

There is another school very like this one for sailor-boys, only that
is not in London either, but a long way down the ri