The “Hundredth,” being “Light Infantry,” called itself “a crack regiment:” the military adjective signifying, in this instance, not so much a higher reputation for discipline and warlike achievements, as an indefinite sort of superiority arising from the fact that no man was allowed to enter the _corps_ who depended upon his pay only for the figure he cut in it. Lieutenant-Colonel Tulip, who commanded, was very strict in this particular, and, having “the good of the service” greatly at heart, set his face entirely against the admission of any young man who did not enjoy a handsome paternal allowance or was not the possessor of a good income. He was himself the son of a celebrated army clothier, and, in the course of ten years, had purchased the rank he now held, so that he had a right, as he thought, to see that his regiment was not contaminated by contact with poor men. His military creed was, that no man had any business in the army who could not afford to keep his horses or tilbury, and drink wine every day; _that_ he called respectable, anything short of it the reverse. If he ever relaxed from the severity of this rule, it was only in favour of those who had high connections; “a handle to a name” being as reverently worshipped by him as money itself; indeed, in secret, he preferred a lord’s son, though poor, to a commoner, however rich; the poverty of a sprig of nobility not being taken exactly in a literal sense. Colonel Tulip had another theory also: during the aforesaid ten years, he had acquired some knowledge of drill, and possessing an hereditary taste for dress, considered himself, thus endowed, a first-rate officer, though what he would have done with his regiment in the field is quite another matter. In the meantime he was gratified by thinking that he did his best to make it a crack corps, according to his notion of the thing, and such minor points as the moral training of the officers, and their proficiency in something more than the forms of the parade ground, were not allowed to enter into his consideration. The “Hundredth” were acknowledged to be “a devilish well-dressed, gentlemanly set of fellows,” and were looked after with great interest at country balls, races, and regattas; and if this were not what a regiment ought to be, Colonel Tulip was, he flattered himself, very much out in his calculations.