Manners are more or less connected with morals, and we had lectures on manners; that is to say, on saluting, which is the beginning and ending of good manners in the army. A good many civilians, especially those of the intellectual "conchie" kind, are inclined to smile at the importance soldiers attach to saluting. Our lecturer convinced me--I hope he convinced the rest of his audience--that saluting is something more than a piece of tiresome ritual, that it is the external expression of certain very great ideas. Occasionally, but not often, we were in difficulties about our lectures. Some one at home sent us a present of a beautiful set of lantern slides, illustrating a tour in Egypt. They were such fine slides that it seemed a pity to waste them. But for a long time we could not find any one who knew enough about Egypt to attempt a verbal accompaniment of the slides. At last we got a volunteer. He said frankly that he did not know half the places we had pictures of, but offered to do his best. He did exceedingly well with the places he did know, making the tombs of the ancient Pharaohs quite interesting to the boys. But he was a conscientious man. He refused to invent history to suit strange pictures. When anything he did not recognise was thrown on the screen he dismissed it rapidly. "This," he would say, "is another tomb, probably of another king," or "This is a camel standing beside a ruined archway." Every one was thoroughly satisfied. We had another set of slides which gave us some trouble, a series of pictures of racing yachts under sail. I had to take those on myself, and I was rather nervous. I need not have been. The boys in that club were capable of taking an interest in any subject under the sun. Before I got to the last slide the audience was ready to shout the name of every sail on a racing cutter, and could tell without hesitation whether a yacht on a run was carrying her spinnaker on the port or starboard hand. They say that all knowledge is useful. I hope that it is. Once or twice a lecturer failed us at the last moment without giving us notice. Then J. and I had to run an entertainment of an instructive kind extempore. J. was strong on personal hygiene. He might start with saluting or the theft of Miss N.'s purse, our great club scandal, but he worked round in the end to soap and tooth brushes. My own business, if we were utterly driven against the wall, was to tell stories.