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te Majesty's accession to the throne. It was a sufficiently solemn proceeding on my own part, for I was warned that I was being guilty of a military misdemeanour of the gravest sort But if the thing was serious to me, it was a matter of rejoicing comedy--or even, if you like, of screaming farce--to the troops who were paraded for church that Sunday morning. Men fairly shrieked with laughter at the sight of the old Kilmarnock cap, the ridiculous tailed jacket, and the rough shoddy trousers bagging at the seat. The officers made an attempt at decorum which was not too successful; and I was hustled from the ground, and escorted to the guard-room, for the high crime and misdemeanour of presuming to appear in the clothes which had officially been served out to me. I appeared at the orderly-room next morning, and underwent a severe wigging from the officer who was in temporary command of the regiment; but the incident was mercifully allowed to close with a mere reprimand. It did a little good, perhaps, for I never knew any other recruit to be served out with an utterly obsolete and useless kit so long as I remained with the regiment; but, until the hour at which my discharge was purchased, I was taught that it was not conducive to personal comfort to rebel against any form of tyranny and extortion which might be condoned by tradition in the Army. Honestly, I do not think that I look with a jaundiced eye upon my remembrances of that most unhappy time, but, as I remember, to have had an education a little better than that of the average ploughman, and to show an inclination to be smart and quick at duty, was a certain passport to the hostility of the non-commissioned officers of the time. They regarded themselves, as I am now inclined to fancy, as a sort of close corporation, and I cannot help thinking that they felt it a kind of duty to themselves to repress the ambitions of any youngster who seemed likely to be marked for promotion. A mere recruit, who had not yet learned the simple mysteries of the goose-step, had registered an objection to being robbed at the outset of his career, and had thereby revealed himself as a person of dangerous ideas which, if pursued to their ultimate, would make an end of all manner of illegitimate profits; and I am not careful to suggest that any special aptitude for a soldier's life on my own part was responsible for the dead set which was made at me by all the non-coms, of the regiment. There
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