the rollicking character of the life in the trenches—of which they had formed but vague and imperfect notions. Liberal bounty and a free kit were offered as a temptation, should the war itself be an insufficient attraction. Of the starving (with plenty within grasp, only under lock and key); of the dying for want of medicines and bandages, with stores of drugs and bales of lint within pistol-shot (only stowed in ship-holds); of the freezing, with new overcoats and rugs in tens of thousands a mile away (only under seal) nothing was said. In point of fact, of these matters very little was known in England. Young John had made up his mind that morning that he would take the shilling of the first smart cavalry serjeant who hailed him, so he spent an hour or two in writing a letter to his father and mother (enclosing his cheque on the Postmaster-General duly signed) and in packing up a scanty wardrobe, the greater part of which he determined to sell. He left his home before daybreak on Christmas morning, and bore away straight for a public-house in Charles Street, Westminster, the headquarters of a party of cavalry recruiting sergeants.
He soon found what he wanted. A non-commissioned officer of the 13th Light Dragoons was down upon him in a hail-fellow-well-met sort of way, with an affectation of joviality intended to convey an idea of what a particularly rollicking thing a soldier's life must be. Young John soon entered into conversation with the sergeant, and the sergeant, who was a liberal-hearted dog, stood a pot of beer (because it was Christmas-day) which they drank together.
