n off the needle.'

The man for whose benefit the narrative was told smoked his pipe
stolidly, and answered, 'Begorra, but it must be cold up there!'

Some of the men had odd ideas about the uses to which learning should
be put. One came to me on a Sunday afternoon bearing a Bible, with a
request that I would find for him and read to him all the indelicate
passages. I met this proposal with so loud a negative, and heaped such
invective on the head of its author, that the corporal of the room, who
was smoking a tranquil pipe outside, came in to find out what was the
matter, and, being satisfied, fell to beating the man about the head
with a boot. From the person thus chastised I heard no more of the
matter; but I learned enough from others to know that my refusal had not
helped to make me popular. There was a tacit sense to the effect that I
was not a friendly fellow--that I was not willing to share the results
of my reading with the less favoured.

At this distance of time I can write dispassionately; but for many years
I had recollections of petty tyrannies which made my blood boil. There
was a lanky youth, four or five months older in the regiment than
myself, who was related to one of the sergeant-majors, and who was, of
course, booked by his relative for promotion. It was never, so far as
I can learn, a part of army etiquette, but it was a common practice at
that time, to steal the belongings of a new arrival, and in that way to
eke out a deficiency in the kit of the plunderer. My valise had not been
served out to me a week before it was denuded of one-half its contents,
and I was reduced to a draft of one penny a day for pocket-money until
such time as the depredations were made good. The sergeant-major's
nephew was found in the act of pipeclaying a pair of gauntlet gloves
which bore my number, and the immediate consequence of this was a
stand-up fight in the riding-school in the presence of some fifty
or sixty of the men and two or three officers who looked on from
the gallery. I came out more than conqueror and recovered the stolen
property; but the lanky young man was made lance-corporal next week, and
it became part of his duty to instruct me in military exercises in which
I was far more proficient than himself. It became a regular habit of his
to keep me at work while the rest of the squad stood at ease, and he had
a vocabulary which, though limited and unoriginal, was as offensive as
can easily be conceived