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“I know you did,” said Burgard softly. “But you found it out in time, which is the great thing. You see,” he turned to me, “with our limited strength we can’t afford to have a single man who isn’t more than up to any duty–in reason. Don’t you be led away by what you saw at Trials just now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of the trade–such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy scores and doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up before they can pull their weight in the boat.”

There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it and smiled.

“Bayley wants to know if you’d care to come with us to the Park and see the kids. It’s only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the taxpayer…. Very good. If you’ll press the button we’ll try to do the rest.”

He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a platform, not unlike a ship’s bridge, immediately above the barrelled glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could see B Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard unlocked a glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and speaking- tubes, and bade me press the centre button.

Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he had not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished like minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on staircases I heard the neighing of many horses.

“What in the world have I done?” I gasped.

“Turned out the Guard–horse, foot, and guns!”

A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:

“Yes, Sir…. What, Sir?… I never heard they said that,” he laughed, “but it would be just like ’em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir. Opposite the Statue? Yes, Sir.”

He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.

“Bayley’s playing up for you. Now you’ll see some fun.”

“Who’s going to catch it?” I demanded.

“Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that it’s en tat de partir, and Bayley’s going to take him at his word and have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the mansard roof!”

He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the building to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the flagstaff that crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black storm-cone followed.

“Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir,” said Burgard down the telephone. “Now we’d better go to the riding-school. The battalion falls in there. I have to change, but you’re free of the corps. Go anywhere. Ask anything. In another ten minutes we’re off.”

I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of houses and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open windows of this dial-dotted eyrie.

When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had been noisy, and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the third floor, Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.

“I thought you might want a guide,” said he. “We’ve five minutes yet,” and piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the riding-school. Three companies were in close order on the tan. They moved out at a whistle, and as I followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a rough black mare.

“Wait a bit,” he said, “till the horses are all out of stables, and come with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it to amuse the taxpayer,” he explained, above the noise of horses on the tan.