udy
ornament fashioned for show and useless for the practical work of the
military profession. Doubtless "these are the forgeries of jealousy,"
or, if true at all, they are true only for that limited period of the
Guardsman's existence, during which he pays more attention to his own
dressing than to that of his men, and imagines that the serious objects
of life are attained when he has raised the height of his collar by half
an inch, or invented a new fashion of transfixing a silk scarf with a
diamond pin. In fact it is during the first flush of his youth that he
displays those characteristics which have specialised the Guardsman
amongst the golden lads who afterwards come to the dust of middle-age
and a colonelcy.

It is by no means necessary that the Young Guardsman should enjoy an
aristocratic parentage, provided it be a wealthy one; nor is it
essential that he should have made his mark at school as a scholar, an
athlete, or a social success. Indeed, nothing is more common than to
hear a former school-fellow express himself in terms of derisive
amazement when he is informed that So-and-So is now in the Guards.
"What, _that_ scug?" he will observe with immeasurable contempt, and
will proceed to express his surprise how one who neither played cricket,
nor football, nor rowed to any purpose can possibly add distinction to
Her Majesty's Brigade of Guards. These observations, it should be said,
however disrespectful they may be towards a particular individual,
undoubtedly show a strong feeling of veneration for the repute of the
Guards in general. It must be added too that on his side the Young
Guardsman is not slow to repay, and in doing so to aggravate, the
contempt of the burly athlete who may have kicked him at school, and
towards whom he now assumes a lordly air of irritating patronage hardly
endurable, but not easily to be resented, by one who feels it to be
totally unwarranted.

The Guardsman, then, will have passed through school without emerging in
any way from the common ruck of ordinary boys. He will have left at a
comparatively early age in order that his education may no longer be
neglected, and will have betaken himself to the fostering care of one of
the numerous establishments which exist to prove that the private coach
_Codlin_ is superior to the public school _Short_. Hence, if his
abilities are exceptionally brilliant, he will have passed into
Sandhurst. Failing this, however, the Militia is a refuge