The difficulties at some Stations in the way of regular teaching and progress were serious, where the temptations for asking leave of absence were unceasing. One Instructor complained bitterly to me. “Although I have got,” he said, “as gentlemanlike a set of young men under Instruction as it is possible to find in the whole world, it has been heartbreaking to try and keep them together for concerted work. First of all, their mammas and their sisters wanted them to dance all night, while by day they were constantly away at Epsom, Ascot, and Goodwood. Then I hoped, the Season being over, I should get them to work, but with the middle of August came requests for leave for grouse-shooting, followed in September by applications for a few days’ partridge-shooting, and early in October out-lying pheasants demanded attention. Now one of the best young fellows in my class wants leave for cub-hunting.” “Oh,” I said, “you should put your foot down; tell him to cub-hunt at daylight, and get here at ten o’clock.” “He would do that cheerfully,” was the answer, “but he is Master of the Hounds, and his kennels are 200 miles from London”! I enjoyed my life, doing most of the travelling in the summer and early autumn, and enjoying a considerable amount of hunting. I took a house near the Staff College, and after doing a day’s work in the office at Aldershot often got a ride in the afternoon with the College drag hounds. After riding with the drag, about tea-time one evening, my friend Lieutenant E. R. P. Woodgate[135] walked up from Blackwater Station, carrying his bag, and in his abrupt, decided way said, “Can you put me up for the night? I want to talk to you.” “Yes, certainly.” After dinner, he observed, “I want to go to the Staff College.” “Well, what do you know?” “I was well taught at Sandhurst, but I have not read much since.” Next morning, I gave him after breakfast a complete set of examination papers, and observed, “Do as much of these as you can, and I will look over them to-night after dinner.” As the result, I said, “With two months’ instruction you would probably succeed in the competition for entrance to the College, but it may take you three.” “What will it cost me?” “About 20 guineas a month.” “Then I must abandon the idea, for I have only got £14 available.” I thought of my friend’s case in the night, and next day wrote to a tutor who had been successful in teaching me, and whom I had obliged with a small loan of money some years before. I made no allusion to the loan, but asked him if he would, as a personal favour to me, teach my friend as much as he could for £14. This he did, and so successfully that Woodgate had no difficulty in getting into the College. He reappears farther on in my story. The Council of Military Education were troubled by the irregularities of Boards of Examination on officers for promotion, for neither candidates nor Boards realised the discredit of “obtaining