So the three adjourned in high good humour with all the world to the parade ground, where a coursing match was to come off between two famous dogs. I will spare the reader a description of the beautiful form of these two canine heroes; it is enough to say that they were marvellously fine greyhounds, and that they killed in the most approved fashion, in spite of all the efforts and doubles of the poor hares. I must further confess that I was much more interested for these harmless creatures than I was for the dogs, though I dare say their performance was matchless in its way; so, at least, it was on all hands pronounced to be. I sank many degrees in the estimation of my regimental friends, I believe, for expressing unreservedly this opinion. The young lads could not understand how any man, even a doctor, could feel no interest in the performance of two such magnificent dogs as Juno and Jupiter. I admitted the merits and beauties of their canine friends--indeed, no one could admire them more than I did. Still, I could not enter into their feelings, nor share in their delight at seeing the hares writhing in agony in the fangs of Jupiter or Juno. 'You don't like fishing, you say, and we see you don't like coursing. What do you like?' 'To hunt the fox, or the jackal, or the wolf, I should think glorious sport.' 'Then,' said M., 'why don't you go out with us in the morning? Whenever we can get a chance we go after jackals. Foxes are rare, and wolves never let us get within rifle distance.' 'Besides,' said S., 'we can't afford to knock our horses off their legs, which we should do if we tried to run down those brutes so as to get within shot.' 'You know,' returned I, 'that in the morning I am not my own master. I have my hospital to attend, my patients to visit and prescribe for, to enter all cases in the journal and casebook, as well as to see that all other hospital books are kept up to date. Perhaps my superintending surgeon might not be altogether pleased if he heard (and these things do travel in an extraordinary way) that I postponed my visit to the hospital till after I had had my run with the dogs; and perhaps the Colonel might not altogether approve of my setting at naught the standing orders of the service, and before his face too.' 'You are quite right,' said W., 'you may rest assured that the Colonel would not approve of any such thing; indeed, he could not.' 'What's that, W., that the Colonel wouldn't and couldn't do?' said Colonel D., who, as he came up, had overheard the last part of W.'s remarks. These were explained to him, and what led to them. His comment was, 'Boys will be boys. The Doctor has acted perfectly right; he could not ride with us in the morning, as the standing orders lay it down precisely that he shall visit his hospital at certain hours, and these would, if we found anything, be just the hours when we should be at the best of the chase; and if he wished ever so much to join us I should not allow him to do so, and W.