When the cool season begins, the Commander-in-Chief sets out upon his tour of inspection. How different it is from the triumphal progress heretofore usual! "What does an officer want in the field?" he had written shortly before leaving England; "his bed, his tent, a blanket, a second pair of breeches, a second pair of shoes, half a dozen shirts, a second flannel waistcoat, a couple of towels, and a piece of soap; all beyond is mere luxury, and not fit for a campaign." So, too, when the Commander-in-Chief was seen on his tour with diminished elephants and fewer camels and no bullocks, and only a third of the usual number of tent-pitchers and half the force or establishment of _chupprassees_ and absolutely no _doolie-wallahs_ at all, old Indians looked mutely at each other in speechless deprecation of such enormities. Then a thousand stories were circulated against the innovator. "He only gave claret at dinner to his guests; his tent was not big enough to swing a cat in; and because he had reduced the government _bheesties_ (water-carriers) by half, it was clear he did not wash," etc., etc. But notwithstanding these criticisms and censures, the Commander-in-Chief went on from station to station, and never was examination so keen or inspection so close. Nothing escaped the eye that looked through these big spectacles. He is out at earliest dawn looking into matters in a regimental cantonment as closely as though he had been quartermaster-sergeant. One morning in some cantonment they miss him; he is not in the barracks nor on the parade-ground. The colonel gets nervous. "Go," he says to the adjutant, "go to the sergeant-major on the parade, and ask him if he has seen the Commander-in-Chief." But the sergeant-major is also missing; he is not on the parade. "Then ride over to his quarters and see if he is there." They go over to the staff-sergeant's quarters, and there sure enough is the missing sergeant-major, having a cup of tea and a bit of bread inside with a stranger. The nervous colonel becomes irate. The sergeant-major has no right to be in his quarters at such a critical time, when the most hawk-eyed Commander-in-Chief that ever held office is prowling about. "What are you doing in your quarters, sergeant-major?"--"The Commander-in-Chief is having some ration-bread and commissariat tea inside, sir," replies the sergeant-major, with a twinkle in his austere eye. And now out comes the missing Commander, face to face with the much-perplexed and puffed colonel. There is lightning in the eye behind the glasses. "And this is the bread your men are getting, sir," he says, holding out a half-eaten crust. "No wonder you have half your regiment in hospital."