"Called you 'Mrs. Darlingwoman,' did he!" roared Mr. Dearman upon being informed of the episode. "Wished to salute your damask cheek, did he! The boozy old villain! Damask cheek! _Damned_ cheek! Where's my dog-whip?" ... but Mrs. Dearman had soothed and restrained her lord for the time being, and prevented him from insulting and assaulting the "aged roué"--who was years younger, in point of fact, than the clean-living Mr. Dearman himself. But he had shut his door to the unrepentant and unashamed General, had cut him in the Club, had returned a rudely curt answer to an invitation to dinner, and had generally shown the offender that he trod on dangerous ground when poaching on the preserves of Mr. Dearman. Whereat the General fumed. Also the General swore that he would cut the comb of this insolent money-grubbing civilian. Further, he intimated his desire to inspect the Gungapur Fusiliers "on Saturday next". Not the great and terrible Annual Inspection, of course, but a preliminary canter in that direction. Doubtless, the new General desired to arrive at a just estimate of the value of this unit of his Command, and to allot to it the place for which it was best fitted in the scheme of local defence and things military at Gungapur. Perhaps he desired to teach the presumptuous upstart, Dearman, a little lesson.... The Brigade Major's demy-official letter, bearing the intimation of the impending visitation--fell as a bolt from the blue and smote the Colonel of the Gungapur Fusiliers a blow that turned his heart to water and loosened the tendons of his knees. The very slack Adjutant was at home on leave; the Sergeant-Major was absolutely new to the Corps; the Sergeant-Instructor was alcoholic and ill; and there was not a company officer, except the admirable Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison, competent to drill a company as a separate unit, much less to command one in a battalion. And Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison was away on an alleged _shikar_-trip across the distant Border. Colonel Dearman knew his battalion-drill. He also knew his Gungapur Fusiliers and what they did when they received the orders of those feared and detested evolutions. They walked about, each man a law unto himself, or stood fast until pushed in the desired direction by blasphemous drill-corporals. Nor could any excuse be found wherewith to evade the General. It was near the end of the drill-season, the Corps was up to its full strength, all the Officers were in the station--except Captain Ross-Ellison and the Adjutant. And the Adjutant's absence could not be made a just cause and impediment why the visit of the General should not be paid, for Colonel Dearman had with some difficulty, procured the appointment of one of his Managers as acting-adjutant.