dfather, stroking his old
grizzled moustache, "I was a cornet in the Buffs. It was in the year--
heigho! my memory's getting rusty!--it was in the year 1803, I believe,
when every one was expecting the French over, and I was quartered with
my regiment at Ogilby. Ogilby is an inland town, you know, thirty miles
from here; and as there was not much immediate danger of Bonaparte
dropping in upon us there without good warning, we had a lazy rollicking
time of it in that bright little place.

"We young officers, boys that we were, thought it a fine thing to live
as grand gentlemen, and spend our pay half a dozen times over in all
sorts of extravagances. And, I recollect with sorrow, I was as bad as
any of them.

"Our colonel was an easy-going old soldier, who had been a wild blade
himself once, and held that it was little use looking too sharply after
us, so he didn't look after us at all; and we in consequence did just as
we pleased.

"Sometimes we invited all the gentry round to feast with us at mess, and
pledged our pay months in advance to load the table with the most costly
delicacies. At other times we would sally forth, and out of sheer
mischief organise a riot in the town, and end the night with broken
heads, and now and then in the lock-up. And when we were tired of this,
we got up I know not what gaieties to pass the time.

"As I said, I was as bad as any of them--worse perhaps. For I had had a
good home and careful training, and knew all the time I was joining in
the excesses of my comrades that I was a fool and a prodigal, and a
traitor to my better self. And yet I went in, and might have gone on to
the end of the chapter, had not an event happened to me which served to
pull me up short.

"One evening that winter our festivities culminated by a grand
entertainment given by the officers of our mess to all the countryside.
Compared with this, our former efforts in the same direction had been
mere child's play. We had hired the largest assembly room in the town,
and decorated it regardless of all expense. The wine merchants and
confectioners for miles round had been exhausted to furnish our supper,
and the tailors and milliners driven nearly distracted over our toilets.
Ogilby had never seen such a brilliant entertainment, and the officers
of the Buffs had never achieved such a triumph.

"I was among the last to leave the gay scene, and as I stepped out into
the chill winter air, and called for my ho