Baden-Powell devoted himself to the men in his troop, and, when he was adjutant, to the whole regiment. He would get them out of their rooms in the afternoon for sports of some kind, he would encourage them to take up flag-wagging or scouting, and he would work like a slave to provide them with an alternative for public-house and canteen. There is a story about him, which shows how popular he is with the men, and, also, that it is possible for soldiers to take an intelligent interest in practical soldiering. Baden-Powell was delivering a course of lectures, I think on scouting, and every lecture had been attended by a large audience which completely filled the room. Men used to wait outside the door in order to get a seat, just as people stand patiently for hours at the pit-door of a theatre. Among this audience there was one young sergeant who had shown a singularly keen interest in the lectures; he was one of the smartest and cleanest-living men in the station, and had never been charged with drunkenness in his life. At one of the lectures B.-P. was surprised to find the young soldier absent, and he was still more surprised on the following day to find that this irreproachable sergeant was up on a charge of drunkenness. "What on earth made you go and get drunk?" asked B.-P. "Well, sir," said the sergeant doggedly, "I was late yesterday and couldn't get in to your lecture, so of course I had to go and get drunk." He said this perfectly seriously, and there was a very world of meaning in his argumentative "of course." [Illustration: "_Viret in AEternum_" Van der Weyde, Photographer, 182, Regent St., W.]