Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used to do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn man. “Now!” Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park) perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the encircling rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women—the women outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road flanking the common and disappear behind the trees. As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the ground inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform, armed and unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three companies in an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of drums and fifes near the railings unconcernedly slashing their way across popular airs; and a batch of gamins labouring through some extended attack destined to be swept aside by a corps crossing the ground at the double. They broke out of furze bushes, ducked over hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from hillocks and rough sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs. Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a freckled twelve-year-old near by. “What’s your corps?” said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion to that child. “Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren’t out to-day.” Then, with a twinkle, “I go to First Camp next year.” “What are those boys yonder—that squad at the double?” “Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir.” “And that full company extending behind the three elms to the south-west?” “Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir.” “Can you come with us?” “Certainly, Sir.” “Here’s the raw material at the beginning of the process,” said Bayley to me. We strolled on towards the strains of “A Bicycle Built for Two,” breathed jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen infants with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the extension movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve as we came up. “We’re all waiting for our big bruvvers,” piped up one bold person in blue breeches—seven if he was a day. “It keeps ’em quieter, Sir,” the maiden lisped. “The others are with the regiments.” “Yeth, and they’ve all lots of blank for _you_,” said the gentleman in blue breeches ferociously. “Oh, Artie! ’Ush!” the girl cried. “But why have they lots of blank for _us_?” Bayley asked. Blue Breeches stood firm. “’Cause—’cause the Guard’s goin’ to fight the Schools this afternoon; but my big bruvver says they’ll be dam-well surprised.” “_Artie!_” The girl leaped towards him. “You know your ma said I was to smack——”