I. O. "I hope that your billet has been kept open for you in England."
Ord. "I sincerely trust it has, sir; but I have missed a season's hunting. I don't intend to miss another if I can help it."
I. O. "The devil you don't. What do you do at home?"
Ord. "I hunt four days a-week in the winter, and in the——"
I. O. "I mean, what is your job?"
Ord. "I haven't much of a job, sir; I'm the junior partner in an engineering firm, and as we do some very big things in contracts, there isn't much left for me to do except amuse myself!"
I. O. "Then whatever made you come out in the ranks?"
Ord. "It suits me, sir. I am not fond of responsibility: besides, if every one who could afford it had taken a commission in our company, we should have been all officers, with no one to command!"
I. O. "I call it most sporting of you."
Ord. "No; not exactly sporting. It was no idea of sport that brought me out here. It was a sense of duty. Were you out here, sir, during the Black Week—the Colenso-Magersfontein period? You were. Then you have not realised, and you never can realise, what we in England went through during that period. I went down to my stables one morning, and my groom came up to me and asked if he might leave at once. In answer to my look of surprise, he said, 'It's this way, sir: I feel that the time has come when we shall want every man who can ride and shoot to defend the country. I can do both, and the country is not going to be defeated because I can ride and shoot, and won't. I want to join the Yeomanry!' I let him go, and thought over his estimate of the situation all day. If the country's honour lay in my groom's hands, how much more must it lie in mine—the employer of labour? I made up my mind before dinner, told my wife before going to bed, and here I am, sir."