"

He continued on his solid way through the recurring duties of the
seasons. The regiment was shifted to another station, and he enjoyed
road-marching for two months, with a good deal of mixed shooting thrown
in, and when they reached their new cantonments he became a member of
the local Tent Club, and chased the mighty boar on horseback with a
short stabbing-spear. There he met the mahseer of the Poonch, beside
whom the tarpon is as a herring, and he who lands him can say that he is
a fisherman. This was as new and as fascinating as the big-game shooting
that fell to his portion, when he had himself photographed for the
mother's benefit, sitting on the flank of his first tiger.

Then the adjutant was promoted, and Cottar rejoiced with him, for he
admired the adjutant greatly, and marvelled who might be big enough to
fill his place; so that he nearly collapsed when the mantle fell on his
own shoulders, and the colonel said a few sweet things that made him
blush. An adjutant's position does not differ materially from that of
head of the school, and Cottar stood in the same relation to the colonel
as he had to his old Head in England. Only, tempers wear out in hot
weather, and things were said and done that tried him sorely, and he
made glorious blunders, from which the regimental sergeant-major pulled
him with a loyal soul and a shut mouth. Slovens and incompetents
raged against him; the weak-minded strove to lure him from the ways of
justice; the small-minded--yea, men whom Cottar believed would never
do "things no fellow can do"--imputed motives mean and circuitous to
actions that he had not spent a thought upon; and he tasted injustice,
and it made him very sick. But his consolation came on parade, when he
looked down the full companies, and reflected how few were in hospital
or cells, and wondered when the time would come to try the machine of
his love and labour.

But they needed and expected the whole of a man's working-day, and maybe
three or four hours of the night. Curiously enough, he never dreamed
about the regiment as he was popularly supposed to. The mind, set free
from the day's doings, generally ceased working altogether, or, if it
moved at all, carried him along the old beach-road to the downs, the
lamp-post, and, once in a while, to terrible Policeman Day. The second
time that he returned to the world's lost continent (this was a dream
that repeated itself again and again, with variations, on the same