LIEUTENANT PORTHOS, Captain ATHOS, and Major ARAMIS were once again being inspected by D'ARTAGNAN, now wearing the gold and crimson scarf of a general officer. "Yes, I have a complaint to make," replied one of the rank and file, in reply to the customary interrogation. "We have three officers; but they have merely to give orders, while we have to obey them. This is unfair--unjust. We are always at work." "Yes," returned General D'ARTAGNAN, "and so are they." "True enough. We feel that, although they pay everything for the battalion, they should do more. They ought to compensate their excellent privates for the time we devote to obeying them." And PORTHOS, ATHOS, and ARAMIS accepted the suggestion, to the great delight of their subordinates. PART III.--_TEN YEARS LATER._ Lieutenant PORTHOS, Captain ATHOS, and Major ARAMIS were yet again on parade. "I salute you, my friends," said Field Marshal D'ARTAGNAN, the inspecting officer. "But where is your Regiment?" PORTHOS looked at ATHOS, and ATHOS glanced at ARAMIS. Then they replied in a breath, "It has been disbanded." "Disbanded!" echoed D'ARTAGNAN. "But where are the accounts of the Corps?" Then the three friends replied in a mournful tone, "Filed in the Court of Bankruptcy!" "And what do you call this filing of officers' accounts in the Court of Bankruptcy?" "We call it the last act of the Volunteer Movement, which, by the way, however, was not entirely voluntary!" And the four friends having no further occupation requiring their joint attention, shook hands warmly, and parted--for ever! * * * * * MEN WHO HAVE TAKEN ME IN--TO DINNER. (_BY A DINNER-BELLE._) NO. I.--THE OVER-CULTURED UNDERGRADUATE. [Illustration] He stood, as if posed by a column, Awaiting our hostess' advance; Complacently pallid and solemn, He deigned an Olympian glance. Icy cool, in a room like a crater, He silently marched me down-stairs, And Mont Blanc could not freeze with a greater Assurance of grandeur and airs. I questioned if Balliol was jolly-- "Your epithet," sighed he, "means noise. Vile noise! At his age it were folly To revel with Philistine boys." Competition, the century's vulture, Devoured academical fools; For himself, utter pilgrim of Culture, He countenanced none of the Schools. Exams: were a Brummagem fashion Of mobs and inferior taste; They withered "Translucence" and "Passion," They vulgarised leisure by haste. Self to realise--that was the question, Inscrutable still while the cooks Of our Colleges preached indigestion, Their Dons indigestible books. Two volumes alone were not bathos, The one by an early Chinese, The other, that infinite pathos, Our Nursery Rhymes, if you please. He was lost, he avowed, in this era; His spirit was seared by the West, But he deemed to be Monk in Madeira Would probably suit him the best.