ager of a London theatre
wrote to him in India offering our astonished hero a position in his
company at a salary of ten pounds a week! There is never an occasion
when B.-P. is not willing to get up theatricals. A few months after
the siege of Kandahar he arranged for a performance of _The Pirates of
Penzance_ in that barbarous city, making himself responsible for the
entire management. The dresses were excellent, the stage and scenery
good, and the opera was received with intense enthusiasm; and yet
there was not a single European woman there; all the dresses and
costumes were the work of B.-P., who himself appeared in the character
of Ruth! On another occasion, when _Trial by Jury_ was to be given, it
was discovered at the last moment, to the consternation of every one
except B.-P., that there were no Royal arms. In a few hours he
produced what I am assured was the most splendid and gorgeous national
emblazonry that ever sparkled behind footlights. He had collected a
few crude paints from the natives of the district, and had painted the
arms with an old shaving-brush. Such is his resourcefulness. And what
of his enthusiasm? When he was home in England on sick-leave he sent
out to the 13th Hussars the book of _Les Cloches de Corneville_, with
excellent sketches of the dresses and hints as to its staging. Again,
he has been known to get off a sick-bed in India in order to take part
in some entertainment for the amusement of soldiers.

It was shortly after the successful performance of _The Pirates of
Penzance_, and after the evacuation of Kandahar, that Baden-Powell
very nearly succeeded in putting an end to himself. He was toying with
a pistol, in the firm conviction that it was unloaded, when, to his
intense indignation, the thing went off and planted a bullet in the
calf of his leg. It might have been a more romantically dangerous
wound, but it was quite sufficiently uncomfortable. Even now, on any
serious change in the weather, B.-P. is unpleasantly reminded of this
adventure in far Afghanistan by rebellious throbbing in the old wound.

On his return from Kandahar Baden-Powell was appointed Adjutant and
Musketry Inspector to his regiment, and he is spoken of by one who was
himself adjutant of this fine regiment for many years as one of the
best adjutants in the world. Shortly after this his uncle, General
Smyth, Commandant at Woolwich, offered him the tempting appointment of
A.D.C., but Baden-Powell preferred India