treet a few
Sundays ago, with kilts swinging, bonnets cocked, and Pipes skirling,
as if they were actually returning from a triumphant campaign instead
of only rehearsing for one--well, as I say, the inhabitants had never
seen anything like us in the world before. We achieved a _succes fou_.
In fact, we were quite embarrassed by the attention bestowed upon us.
During our first few parades the audience could with difficulty be
kept off the stage. It was impossible to get the children into school,
or the maids to come in and make the beds. Whenever a small boy spied
an officer, he stood in his way and saluted him. Dogs enlisted in
large numbers, sitting down with an air of pleased expectancy in the
supernumerary rank, and waiting for this new and delightful pastime to
take a fresh turn. When we marched out to our training area, later in
the day, infant schools were decanted on to the road under a beaming
vicar, to utter what we took to be patriotic sounds and wave
handkerchiefs.

Off duty, we fraternised with the inhabitants. The language was a
difficulty, of course; but a great deal can be done by mutual goodwill
and a few gestures. It would have warmed the heart of a philologist to
note the success with which a couple of kilted heroes from the banks
of Loch Lomond would sidle up to two giggling damosels of Hampshire at
the corner of the High Street, by the post office, and invite them
to come for a walk. Though it was obvious that neither party could
understand a single word that the other was saying, they never failed
to arrive at an understanding; and the quartette, having formed
two-deep, would disappear into a gloaming as black as ink, to inhale
the evening air and take sweet counsel together--at a temperature of
about twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

You ought to see us change guard. A similar ceremony takes place,
we believe, outside Buckingham Palace every morning, and draws a
considerable crowd; but you simply cannot compare it with ours. How
often does the guard at Buckingham Palace fix bayonets? Once! and
the thing is over. It is hardly worth while turning out to see. _We_
sometimes do it as much as seven or eight times before we get it
right, and even then we only stop because the sergeant-in-charge
is threatened with clergyman's sore throat. The morning Private
Mucklewame fixed his bayonet for the first time, two small boys stayed
away from school all day in order to see him unfix it when he came
off guar