Of course ninety-nine out of every hundred old war dogs who have the misfortune to retain their pristine longing for hard work and an active life, when they are rapidly approaching the allotted threescore years and ten of their existence, and maybe, like the writer, are incapacitated by rheumatism, sciatica, tic-doloreux, housemaid's knee, liver and the hump from ever participating again in such sports as their hearts yearn for but their age and infirmities render impracticable, sit down, and, instead of employing their remaining years in making their souls, grouse and grumble at their bad luck, blaming everyone except themselves (_bien entendu_) for their bad luck, and maybe poverty, entirely forgetting the glorious years they put in when they were able to lead a charge, rush a kopje, or back a bucking horse with the best. Yes, and they are prone to belittle, and perhaps to undervalue, the men who have shouldered them out and taken their places in the fighting line, and who are at present responsible for and are upholding the honour of our gracious King and glorious old flag on the frontiers of our splendid Empire. "Yes, by gad, sir," growls one old war dog to another, "these present men are not worth their salt, sir. They should have been with us, sir, fifty years ago, then they would have known what privations and hand-to-hand fighting meant. Nowadays they are fitted out with flat trajectory magazine rifles, Maxim guns, pom-poms, and the Lord only knows what else, while we had to fight with old muzzle-loading rifles, sneiders or Martini-Henry's that were always jamming, etc., etc., etc." Grouse, grumble, grouse: and so they go on _ad infinitum_.