Aside from desertions, there were reasons why we couldn’t keep our quota. The weeding out of the physically unfit brought surprising and extensive results. Men who appeared at first amply able to stand “the game” were unable to keep up when the screw was turned. Then, also, our regiment stuck to a high physical standard. Every man must be five feet ten, or over. Many of our candidates failed on the perpendicular requirement only. However, we were not confined to the ordinary rule in Canada, that recruits must come from the home military district of the battalion. We were permitted to recruit throughout the Dominion, and thus we gathered quite a cosmopolitan crowd. The only other unit given this privilege of Dominion-wide recruiting was the P. P. C. L. I. (Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry), the first regiment to go overseas from Canada, composed largely of veterans of the South African and other colonial wars. We felt a certain emulation about this veteran business and voiced it in our recruiting appeals. We assured our prospective “rookies” that we were just as first-class as any of them. On most of our recruiting trips we took a certain corporal with us who had seen service in France with a Montreal regiment and had been invalided home. He was our star speaker. He would mount a box or other improvised stand and describe in his simple, soldierly way the splendid achievements of the comrades who had gone over ahead of us, and the opportunities for glory and distinction awaiting any brave man who joined with us. When he described his experiences there was a note of compelling eloquence and patriotic fervor in his remarks which sometimes aroused the greatest enthusiasm. Often he was cheered as a hero and carried on men’s shoulders from the stand, while recruits came forward in flocks and women weepingly bade them go on and do their duty. I learned, afterwards that this corporal had been a cook, had never been within twenty miles of the frontline, and had been invalided home for varicocele veins. He served us well; but there was a man who was misplaced, in vocation and geography. He should have been in politics in Kentucky. While we were in the training camp at St. Johns, I made the acquaintance of a young Canadian who became my “pal.” He was Campbell Macfarlane, nephew of George Macfarlane, the actor who is so well known on the American musical stage. He was a sergeant. When I first knew him, he was one of the most delightful and amusing young fellows you could imagine.