Colonel said they should
be closed, and closed they were--the proprietors, strange to say,
assenting with a will. This alacrity was not consistent with their
earlier diatribes against military despotism; but the fact was that
since "lyddite" had been found out the experts were chary of making it,
and the public still more chary of drinking it. There was some risk in
selling it, too, so--clear the course for the "Law."

The second proclamation was all of wax and tallow. It commanded that all
lights must in future be extinguished at half-past nine. We were thus
considerately given half an hour to undress and lie reading books in bed
after having been turned away from a perusal of the stars. We might have
liked a little time for supper--but what am I saying!--there were no
suppers; at least nobody was expected to commit a capital offence. But
such miscreants existed, and kept their heads. It must in fairness be
explained that they were for the most part possessors of obstinate hens
that _would not_ lay eggs. Eggs were firm at twenty-five shillings a
dozen, and the hen that remained so contemptuous of mammon, so
unredeemed by cupidity, so unmoved by the "golden" opportunity, most
certainly deserved death. Therefore it was that an odd tough member of
the feathered tribe was now and then discussed in secret. There was
little conviviality about these gatherings assembled in back rooms where
the light could burn with impunity. The unsuspecting night-patrol would
pass blindly by, oblivious of the illegally illuminated junket within.

But indeed it must be confessed that few people took seriously the wax
and tallow proclamation. The boarding-house keepers, of course,
championed it and its author's wisdom (for reasons)--with a zeal that
contrasted strangely with their condemnation of grander enactments.
Landladies apart, however, the populace pooh-poohed the Gilbertian
decree. Some regarded it as a mere precaution against a surprise visit
from the Boers. But this was wrong, for the proclamation permitted the
use of electric and acetylene lights at all hours. It was purely an
economic question with the Colonel. Cynics opined that we should later
on be offered the tallow to eat; and that the prohibition of the use of
starch in our linen would be the precursor of some _stiff_ emergency
rations. The public, I say, disregarded the candle law, and the night
patrol was kept busy dotting down in the light of the moon the numbers
of a th