"The cavalry fellows," resumed Bones, "didn't seem able to muster much talent in the way of track athletes, and for a time they weren't in it at all. But one night, between tattoo and taps, little Whateley—second lieutenant, you know, of 'H' troop—came riding down the lines, stopping at all the regimental headquarters, and finally he brought up at our marquee.
"A few of us were sitting there, smoking a good-night pipe before turning in, and we made him dismount before telling us his errand. Well, I ordered up a little prescription for him, to counteract the effects of the night air, and when he'd got back his breath—"
"Gad!" put in one of the visitors, "is that the way your doses work, doctor?"
"Did I say it was the prescription?" inquired the doctor, unclasping his hands, and leaning forward to take a pipe from the table. "He might have been out of breath from riding so far. Anyway, he got his breath back, as I've stated, and used it to remark that the cavalry took a deep interest in military sports, and had chipped in to buy a silver tankard to be ridden for by the mounted officers in the brigade. And he further said—with a grin, too, confound his youthful impudence!—that he knew we could enter some mighty fine material, for the reputation for horsemanship of our field and staff was more than local.
"Now, that last insinuation was too much, and we told him that he needn't worry—we'd be represented. So off he rode, declining to take another dose of my good medicine, though I told him that the prescription read, 'Repeat as required,' which meant once in five minutes. Well, after he'd gone, we began to talk it all over, and the discussion as to who best could afford to run the risk of breaking his neck for the glory of the regiment and the good of the service was an animated one, you'd do well to believe."
"Yes—and I remember the extreme modesty with which everybody suggested some other man for that distinction," remarked the colonel in a reminiscent way, "and how you all fell over each other in your anxiety to let somebody else do the riding and gather in the glory."
"Well, I'd been detailed as Field Officer of the Day for the date the race was scheduled," Major Pollard hastened to explain; while Langforth promptly came in with the remark, "And I hardly had got into shape from my winter's attack of grippe."
"There, there!" exclaimed the colonel, with a wave of his hand, "we don't care to have all that over again. For my own part, I couldn't ride because—well, because it hardly would do for a regimental commander to so far forget himself as to go in for anything of that sort. See?"
"In other words, six of us didn't dare to go in, and the remaining half-dozen were afraid to," said the surgeon, drawing up one foot to rest it easily across his knee. "Well, it all ended in my being chosen by acclamation to represent the glorious Third, and, though I wasn't exactly 'impatient to mount and ride,' yet I made the best of it, and tried to pretend that I was."