rs are all driven by the sons of soldiers' wives; the
clergy-men are all military chaplains; those goats are going up to be
milked for the major's delicate daughter; that lady practising horse
exercise in a ring in her garden is wife to Pillicoddy of the Control
Department, and is merely correcting the neglected education of her
youth; the very monkeys--diminishing sadly, it grieves me to say--recall
associations of the mess-room, for you never fail to hear of that
terrible sportsman, "one of Cardwell's gents," who thought it excellent
fun to shoot one some time ago. Luckily, the rules of the service did
not permit him to be tried by court-martial, or the wretched boy might
have been ordered out for instant execution, so great was the
indignation. But if he was not shot he was roasted as fearfully as ever
St. Laurence was; he was reminded a thousand times if once that
fratricide is a fearful crime, and if ever Nemesis visits his pillow it
will be in the shape of a monkey without a tail.

One wearies of the same scenes of beauty, and would fain barter the Cork
Woods for the chestnuts in Bushy Park; the bright Bay and the watchet
sky pall on the senses, and a dull river and drab clouds would be
welcomed for change. The day rises when the conversation of the same
set, the stories repeated as often as that famous one of grouse in the
gun-room, and the stale jokes anent the Sheeref of Wazan and the rival
innkeepers of Tangier, black Martin and "Lord James," cloy like treacle;
the fiction palmed upon the latest novice that he must go and have a few
shots at the monkeys, if he wishes to curry favour at headquarters,
misses fire; the calls of the P. and O. steamers, and the thought that
their passengers within a week either have seen, or will see, the
little village works its effect; even bull-fighting is adjudged a bore,
and one sighs for Regent Street and the "Rag and Famish," flaxen
ringlets, and roast beeL A twelvemonth might pass pleasantly on the
Rock; but after that the "damnable iteration" of existence must jar on
the nerves like the note of a cuckoo. Still, as my philosopher of the
cemetery remarked, there are worse places--far worse, Assouan and Aden,
for example; so let not the gallant gentleman repine whom Fate has
assigned to a round of duty in Sutlersville. For Tommy Atkins of the
rank and file, it is wearisome when he is young; he should not be asked
to stay there longer than a twelvemonth while he is at the age w