It became then my lot to take over Frank, or, to put it more correctly, I was issued with him. That is part of the military principle of fixing responsibility. Things are not issued to you; you are issued with them, and you alone are accountable. I was issued with Frank and all his harness and appointments and, incidentally, his parlour tricks. This was the formal introduction. I didn't meet him at close range until later. When I was issued with him I didn't even know his name. No previous owner had ever thought of asking it, and had they asked they would not have believed that a horse could be called Frank. On general principles it seems wrong, but on nearer acquaintance I found that Frank was exactly the name for him. The great thing about him was that if he thought a thing he said it. For example, when I first mounted him he thought he would prefer to remain in the stable where he had been for the best part of a week. He said so quite candidly. I am nothing very great as a handler of wild animals, and he gave me three minutes made up of every action in his _repertoire_--no limited one. At the end of it I very kindly dismounted. I didn't want him to think I was not intelligent enough to understand what he meant, and moreover I hated the idea of marring our first meeting by refusing so unmistakable a request. So he was led back to his quarters and the incident closed, if not with mutual goodwill at least with some degree of satisfaction fairly evenly distributed among the parties. It was, I remember, on the next morning that the Mess Sergeant noticed a shortage of lump sugar in one of the basins. I mention this merely because it fixes in my mind the first day on which I had a comfortable ride. Frank started out in a good temper and came home at his best pace, hoping to get some more sugar. That, at least, is how I read his meaning, and I pursued my policy of not misunderstanding him. After this he developed a parlour trick which made me quite fond of him. When I went to the stable he would put his nose round to the side pocket whore I kept the sugar. He always got some, and he knew there would always be some more when he got home. Thus it became necessary to instruct him in topography. He quickly learned that certain turnings led to the camp, and I was reduced to subterfuges to prove to him that they did not. It was essential to go over every road at various times in opposite directions. That confused him, and though I disliked the deception I had to resort to it, with the result that Frank finally accepted me at my own fictitious valuation as a person who did not properly know his own mind.