So in a score of cases differing very slightly from each other. It was the old story which was lyrically rendered by Dr. Watts, of Satan being always ready to provide congenial occupation for gentlemen with nothing to do. There is not, I believe, very much martial ardour in the Household Brigade just now. That born of the Crimean war has died out and faded away, and the officers have taken to drive off _ennui_, some by becoming district visitors, and others by enjoying the honest beer and improving conversation of the firemen in Watling Street. But even now there is infinitely more enthusiasm, more belief in the profession as a profession, more study of strategy as a thing which a military man should know something of, than there was before the Crimean expedition. The metropolitan inhabitants had little care for their gallant defenders in those days. Their acquaintance with them was limited to the knowledge that large red men were perpetually discovered in the kitchens, and on discovery were presented as relatives of the servants; or that serious, and in some cases fatal, brawls occurred in the streets, when the pleasant fellows laid about them with their belts, or ran amuck amongst a crowd with their bayonets. An occasional review took place in the Park, or a field-day at Woolwich; but no cordial relations existed between the majority of the Londoners and the household troops until the news came of the battle of the Alma. Then the public learned that the Guards' officers were to be heard of in other places than ball-rooms and divorce-courts, and that guardsmen could fight with as much untiring energy as they had already displayed in feeding on householders and flirting with cooks. Not much worse, certainly not much better, than his compeers was Laurence Alsager in those days, always having "something on" in the way of feminine worship, until the great "something" happened, which, according to Jock M'Laren and one or two others, had occasioned the great change in his life, and caused his prolonged absence from England. But in all his experience he had only known women of a certain kind; women of the world, ready to give and take; women, in his relations with whom there had been no spice of romance save that spurious romance of the French-novel school, so attractive at first, so hollow, and bad, and disgusting, when proceeded with. It is not too much to say that, varied as his "affaires" had been, he had not known one quiet, pure-minded, virtuous woman; and that during his long foreign sojourn he had thought over this, and often wondered whether he should ever have a wife of his own, or, failing this, whether he should ever have a female friend whom at the same time he could love and respect.