en we watched for the soldiers, and after three days they went by
again, by twos and twos as before. It was A1.

We waved our flag, and we shouted. We gave them three cheers. Oswald can
shout loudest. So as soon as the first man was level with us (not the
advance guard, but the first of the battery)--he shouted:

"Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!"

And then we waved the flag, and bellowed. Oswald stood on the wall to
bellow better, and Denny waved the flag because he was a visitor, and so
politeness made us let him enjoy the fat of whatever there was going.

The soldiers did not cheer that day; they only grinned and kissed their
hands.

The next day we all got up as much like soldiers as we could. H. O. and
Noel had tin swords, and we asked Albert's uncle to let us wear some of
the real arms that are on the wall in the dining-room. And he said,
"Yes," if we would clean them up afterwards. But we jolly well cleaned
them up first with Brooke's soap and brick dust and vinegar, and the
knife polish (invented by the great and immortal Duke of Wellington in
his spare time when he was not conquering Napoleon. Three cheers for our
Iron Duke!), and with emery paper and wash leather and whitening. Oswald
wore a cavalry sabre in its sheath. Alice and the Mouse had pistols in
their belts, large old flint-locks, with bits of red flannel behind the
flints. Denny had a naval cutlass, a very beautiful blade, and old
enough to have been at Trafalgar. I hope it was. The others had French
sword-bayonets that were used in the Franco-German War. They are very
bright, when you get them bright, but the sheaths are hard to polish.
Each sword-bayonet has the name on the blade of the warrior who once
wielded it. I wonder where they are now. Perhaps some of them died in
the war. Poor chaps! But it is a very long time ago.

I should like to be a soldier. It is better than going to the best
schools, and to Oxford afterwards, even if it is Balliol you go to.
Oswald wanted to go to South Africa for a bugler, but father would not
let him. And it is true that Oswald does not yet know how to bugle,
though he can play the infantry "advance," and the "charge" and the
"halt" on a penny whistle. Alice taught them to him with the piano, out
of the red book father's cousin had when he was in the Fighting Fifth.
Oswald cannot play the "retire," and he would scorn to do so. But I
suppose a bugler has to play what he is told, no matter how g