"Jolly good luck," Miss VESTA TILLEY used to sing, "to the
girl who loves a soldier!" The sentiment is not less true to-day than
when, too long ago, the famous male impersonator first uttered it.
But there is no need to be actually the warrior's lover. To be his
companion merely on a walk is to reap benefits, too, as I have been
observing on the promenade of ---- (a marine town whose name is, for
tactical reasons, suppressed). At ---- the girls whose good fortune it
is to have for an acquaintance a lieutenant or captain have just now a
great time, for the town has suddenly become a veritable Chatham, and
the promenade is also a _Champ de Mars_. All the week it is the scene
of military evolutions, a thought too strenuous for the particular
variety of jolly good luck of which I am thinking; but there's a day
which comes betwixt the Saturday and Monday when hard work gives way to
rest, and then----!
For then this promenade, two or three miles long, is thronged by the
military--privates, usually in little bands of threes and fours, and
officers, mostly accompanied by pretty girls. And the demeanour of some
of the younger of these officers is a great deal better worth watching
than the sullen winter sea or the other more ordinary objects of the
seaside. For they are there, some of them (bless their hearts!), for
the pleasure of being saluted, and their pretty friends enjoy the
reflected glory too. Some high-spirited ones among the satellites even
go so far as noticeably to count the salutes which a walk yields. And
I daresay they pit their bag against those of others. Their heroes
probably vote such a competition bad form, and yet I doubt if they are
really deeply resentful, and I guess that the young ROBERTS
and the young WOLSELEY and the young WELLINGTON all
passed through similar ecstasies when they were first gazetted.
It was while walking behind one such happy little group that I made the
discovery--a discovery to me, who am hopelessly a civilian, but no new
thing I daresay to most people--that the saluting soldier must employ
the hand which is farthest away from the officer whom he is saluting,
and that is why some use the right and some the left--a discrepancy
which plunged me into the gravest fears as to Lord KITCHENER'S
fitness to control our army, until I realised the method underlying.
I noticed too that there is a good deal of difference both in saluting
and in acknowledging salutes, and I overheard the fair young friend of
one lieutenant adjuring him to be a little more genial in his attitude
to the nice men who were bringing their arms and hands up with such
whipcord tenseness in his honour.
* * * * *
"On another occasion one of our officers was pursued by an albatross
which succeeded in crossing our lines."
_Victoria Daily Colonist._
Joy of the _Ancient Mariner_ on hearing, that his King and Country want
_him_.
* * * * *