With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not follow, an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which numbers and blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the riders by a private, evidently the joker of C Company. Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the final drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the Sacred Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that followed, when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh detachment of stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another company. Said Matthews as we withdrew, “Each company does Trials their own way. B Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps ’em to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks. They call us the Gunners.” “An’ you’ve rejected _me_,” said the man who had done sea-time, pushing out before us. “The Army’s goin’ to the dogs.” I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard. “Come up to my room and have a smoke,” said Matthews, private of the Imperial Guard. We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense landing flanked with numbered doors. Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like room. The cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay a brilliant blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf of books: a writing table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low wicker chair. “This is a cut above subaltern’s quarters,” I said, surveying the photos, the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit hung up behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls. “The Line bachelors use ’em while we’re away; but they’re nice to come back to after ‘heef.’” Matthews passed me his cigarette-case. “Where have you ‘heefed’?” I said. “In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the North-West Indian front.” “What’s your service?” “Four years. I’ll have to go in a year. I got in when I was twenty-two—by a fluke—from the Militia direct—on Trials.” “Trials like those we just saw?” “Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my stripes, but there’s no chance.” “Why?” “I haven’t the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a half-company for a month in Rhodesia—over towards Lake N’Garni. I couldn’t work ’em properly. It’s a gift.” “Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?”