The light-heartedness which characterized Baden-Powell's early days appears to have increased rather than deteriorated when he entered upon the serious business of life. There is a curious story told of one of his first doings on joining his regiment in India which serves to show what high spirits and whimsical notions were his in those days. Assembling all the European children he could find or hear of, he produced from his kit an ocarina--an instrument from which most people would surely despair of extracting much music!--and forming his youthful following into procession, marched at their head through the streets playing "The Girl I Left Behind Me." One learns a good deal about Baden-Powell from that little incident, and it is not surprising that it should have done a good deal to make him popular with the folk amongst whom he had suddenly appeared. But his popularity with his brother officers seems to have been assured from the first. Just as he had been the life and soul of Charterhouse in all things appertaining to gaiety and amusements, so he speedily became a moving spirit in regimental jinks and jollities. It was not long ere his fellows discovered that they had got a veritable prodigy amongst them where theatrical matters were concerned, and that behind the new-comer's somewhat reserved manner there lay such funds of light and original humour as are too seldom met with in this world. At this time, no doubt, Baden-Powell's wonderful versatility was widening and deepening, and his extraordinary facility in doing anything that had to be done must have been nothing short of astonishing to those who witnessed it. Always ready and always willing to take anything in hand, it is little wonder that those who remember him in those early days in India speak of him with an affection which is not the less real because there is always a vein of merriment in it. [Illustration: The Horse Guard.]