There are a certain number of individuals who from earliest infancy have been imbued with the idea that the chief pastime of officers in the army, when they are not making love to another man's wife, is the preparation of harsh and tyrannical rules for the express purpose of annoying their men, and the gloating infliction of drastic punishment on those that break them. The absurdity of this idea has nothing to do with it, it being a well-known fact that the more absurd an idea is, the more utterly fanatical do its adherents become. To them the thought that a man being late on parade should make him any the worse fighter--especially as he had, in all probability, some good and sufficient excuse--cannot be grasped. To them the idea that men may not be a law unto themselves--though possibly agreed to reluctantly in the abstract--cannot possibly be assimilated in the concrete. "He has committed some trifling offence," they say; "now you will give him some ridiculous punishment. That is the curse of militarism--a chosen few rule by Fear." And if you tell them that any attempt to inculcate discipline by fear alone must of necessity fail, and that far from that being the method in the Army the reverse holds good, they will not believe you. Yet--it is so.... "Shall I bring in the prisoner, sir?" The Sergeant-Major was standing by the door. "Yes, I'll see him now." The officer threw his cigarette into the fire and put on his hat. "Take off your 'at. Come along there, my lad--move. You'd go to sleep at your mother's funeral--you would." Seymour smiled at the conversation outside the door; he had soldiered many years with that Sergeant-Major. "Now, step up briskly. Quick march. 'Alt. Left turn." He closed the door and ranged himself alongside the prisoner facing the table. "No. 8469, Private Meyrick--you are charged with being late on the 8 a.m. parade this morning. Sergeant-Major, what do you know about it?" "Sir, on the 8 a.m. parade this morning, Private Meyrick came running on 'alf a minute after the bugle sounded. 'Is puttees were not put on tidily. I'd like to say, sir, that it's not the first time this man has been late falling in. 'E seems to me to be always a dreaming, somehow--not properly awake like. I warned 'im for office." The officer's eyes rested on the hatless soldier facing him. "Well, Meyrick," he said quietly, "what have you got to say?" "Nothing, sir. I'm sorry as 'ow I was late. I was reading, and I never noticed the time." "What were you reading?" The question seemed superfluous--almost foolish; but something in the eyes of the man facing him, something in his short, stumpy, uncouth figure interested him. "I was a'reading Kipling, sir." The Sergeant-Major snorted as nearly as such an august disciplinarian could snort in the presence of his officer. "'E ought, sir, to 'ave been 'elping the cook's mate--until 'e was due on parade."