It was not difficult to understand why the officers as a body rather neglected their duties. They were too fully occupied in maintaining the credit of the regiment according to their own interpretation of the phrase. This meant that it should be renowned--not for marching and manœuvres, for demeanour, discipline, and drill--but for its ostentation and display, for the grand balls and entertainments it gave, for its mess perfectly appointed, its artistic _chefs_, its exquisite wines. It was for the credit of the regiment that it should keep up a regimental drag, a cricket and lawn tennis club, and give weekly afternoon teas; that during the season six or seven at least of the Duke’s Own should turn out in scarlet to hunt with the nearest hounds, that some one amongst their number should take a shooting or a river, which the regimental sportsmen might honour in turn; that half the regiment at least should rush up to town from Friday to Monday every week, and enjoy themselves in loafing about the park and the Burlington Arcade, or idling away the hours at the club, and devoutly wishing they were back at their own regimental mess. These high-flown ideas very rapidly developed into extravagant tastes, which had reached their highest point about the time when Herbert Larkins became one of the Duke’s Own. The regiment had only returned a year or two previously from a lengthened tour of foreign service, and after their long exile in outer darkness everyone with any spirit or capacity for enjoyment had been resolved to take his pleasure to the full. It was expected of the officers of the Duke’s Own to come well to the front, and this they pretended was a more potent inducement to them to spend money than any hankering after personal gratification. So, with but few exceptions, they launched forth freely enough. It was, with many, a case of the earthen pots swimming with the brass; but all, or nearly all, were determined to do their duty to the regiment and go the pace, or as Mr. Crouch, the sporting quartermaster styled it, ‘go to the devil hands down.’ What if any serious financial crisis supervened? Their people would have to stump up; their fathers--probably by drawing upon a wife’s provision or daughter’s portion, and always by impoverishing themselves--would pay their debts, but they would have had ‘a high old time,’ and the imperishable credit of the Duke’s Own Fusiliers would have been most brilliantly maintained.