f D15.'" He is a man who can grow very nearly as fond of his
troop's horses as of his own.

A good description of Baden-Powell is that versatile officer's own
sketch of a man with whom he soldiered on one of his campaigns: "He
has all the qualifications that go to make an officer above the ruck
of them. Endowed with all the dash, pluck, and attractive force that
make a born leader of men, he is also steeped in common sense, is
careful in arrangement of details, and possesses a temperament that
can sing 'Wait till the clouds roll by' in crises where other men are
tearing their hair." The public in the light of recent events will be
quick to recognise B.-P. in the latter part of this portrait; I can
assure them that the rest is equally accurate. As a regimental officer
he exhibits all these good qualities. He can show the men dash and
pluck in every sport they care for, his common sense makes him the
friend of Tommy Atkins as well as his officer, and the affairs of his
regiment are so admirably managed that there is no enervating air of
slackness about the barracks from the first monitory note of
"Reveille" to the last wailing sound of "Lights Out."

And while Baden-Powell is loved in the barrack-room he is ever the
most popular figure in the Officers' Mess. There is nothing of the
namby-pamby, I mean, in his solicitude for the soldier's welfare,
nothing to make him unpopular with his brother officers, nothing that
makes even the youngest subaltern a little contemptuous. _Tout au
contraire._ The place he holds in the affections of his brother
officers may, perhaps, be seen in a quotation from the letter of an
officer in the 13th Hussars, which I received during the most anxious
days of the siege of Mafeking. After saying that relief ought to have
been sent before, my Hussar says, "Poor dear chap, he must be severely
tried. As I eat my dinner at night I always wish I could hand it over
to him." Could a Briton do more?

Such then is Baden-Powell's character as a regimental officer. Beloved
by the little fashionable world of the Officers' Mess, adored by the
men who eat and sleep and clean sword, carbine, and boots in the one
room, he presents to the gaze of the schoolboy whose whole thoughts
are set upon Sandhurst the beau-ideal of a regimental officer.

To reach that ideal there are five great essentials--keenness,
courage, high-mindedness, self-abnegation, humour. Ability to mix
freely with private soldiers without lo