as innocent as the babe unborn of the theatrical resurrec tion of the Drum-Horse.

"My instructions," said Yale, with a singularly sweet smile, "were that the Drum-Horse should be sent back as impressively as possible. I ask you, am I responsible if a mule-headed friend sends him back in such a manner as to disturb the peace of mind of a regiment of Her Majesty's Cavalry?"

Martyn said :- "You are a great man, and will in time become a General; but I'd give my chance of a troop to be safe out of this affair."

The Sec

Providence saved Martyn and Hogan-Yale. ond-in-Command led the Colonel away to the little curtained alcove wherein the Subalterns of the White Hussars were accustomed to play poker of nights; and there, after many oaths on the Colonel's part, they talked together in low tones. I fancy that the Second-in-Command must have represented the scare as the work of some trooper whom it would be hopeless to detect; and I know that he dwelt upon the sin and the shame of making a public laughing-stock of the scare.

"They will call us," said the Second-in-Command, who had really a fine imagination," they will call us the 'Flyby-Nights'; they will call us the 'Ghost Hunters'; they will nick-name us from one end of the Army list to the other. All the explanations in the world won't make outsiders understand that the officers were away when the panic began. For the honor of the Regiment and for your own sake keep this thing quiet."

The Colonel was so exhausted with anger that soothing him down was not so difficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently and by degrees, that it was obviously impossible to court-martial the whole Regiment

and equally impossible to proceed against any subaltern who, in his belief, had any concern in the hoax.

"But the beast's alive! He's never been shot at all!" shouted the Colonel. "Its flat, flagrant disobedience! I've known a man broke for less, d-d side less. They're mocking me, I tell you, Mutman! They're mocking me!" Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself to soothe the Colonel, and wrestled with him for half-anhour. At the end of that time, the Regimental SergeantMajor reported himself. The situation was rather novel to him; but he was not a man to be put out by circumstances. He saluted and said: "Regiment all come back, Sir." Then, to propitiate the Colonel :-"An' none of the horses any the worse, Sir."

The Colonel only snorted and answered :—“ You'd better tuck the men into their cots, then, and see that they don't wake up and cry in the night." The Sergeant withdrew.

His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he felt slightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The Second-in-Command worried him again, and the two sat talking far into the night.

Next day but one, there was a Commanding Officer's parade, and the Colonel harangued the White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his speech was that, since the Drum-Horse in his old age had proved himself capable of cutting up the whole Regiment, he should return to his post of pride at the head of the Band, but the Regiment were a set of ruffians with bad consciences.

The White Hussars shouted, and threw everything moveable about them into the air, and when the parade was over, they cheered the Colonel till they couldn't speak. No cheers were put up for Lieutenant Hogan Yale who smiled very sweetly in the background.

Said the Second-in-Command to the Colonel, unoffi

cially :

"These little things ensure popularity, and do not the least affect discipline."

"The

"But I went back on my word," said the Colonel. "Never mind," said the Second-in-Command. White Hussars will follow you anywhere from to-day. Regiments are just like women. They will do anything for trinketry."

A week later, Hogan-Yale received an extraordinary letter from some one who signed himself " Secretary, Charity and Zeal, 3709, E. C.," and asked for "the return, of our skeleton which we have reason to believe is in your possession."

"Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades in bones? said Hogan-Yale.

"Beg your pardon, Sir," said the Band-Sergeant, "but the skeleton is with me, an' I'll return it if you'll pay the carriage into the Civil Lines. There's a coffin with it, Sir."

Hogan-Yale smiled and handed two rupees to the BandSergeant, saying " Write the date on the skull, will you?"

:

If you doubt this story, and know where to go, you can see the date on the skeleton. But don't mention the matter to the White Hussars.

I happen to know something about it, because I prepared the Drum-Horse for his resurrection. He did not take kindly to the skeleton at all.

THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE.

In the daytime, when she moved about me,

In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,

I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence.
Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her—
Would God that she or I had died!

Confessions.

THERE was a man called Bronckhorst—a three-cornered, middle-aged man in the Army-gray as a badger, and, some people said, with a touch of country-blood in him. That, however, cannot be proved. Mrs. Bronckhorst was not exactly young, though fifteen years younger than her husband. She was a large, pale, quiet woman, with heavy eyelids, over weak eyes, and hair that turned red or yellow as the lights fell on it.

Bronckhorst was not nice in any way. He had no respect for the pretty public and private lies that make life a little less nasty than it is. His manner towards his wife was coarse. There are many things-including actual assault with the clenched fist-that a wife will endure; but seldom a wife can bear- -as Mrs. Bronckhorst bore-with a long course of brutal, hard chaff, making light of her weaknesses, her headaches, her small fits of gayety, her dresses, her queer little attempts to make herself attractive to her husband when she knows that she is not what she has been, and-worst of all-the love that she spends on her children. That particular sort of heavyhanded jest was specially dear to Bronckhorst. I suppose that he had first slipped into it, meaning no harm, in the

say.

honeymoon, when folk find their ordinary stock of endearments run short, and so go to the other extreme to express their feelings. A similar impulse makes a man say :"Hutt, you old beast!" when a favorite horse nuzzles his coat-front. Unluckily, when the reaction of marriage sets in, the form of speech remains, and, the tenderness having died out, hurts the wife more than she cares to But Mrs. Bronckhorst was devoted to her "Teddy" as she called him. Perhaps that was why he objected to her. Perhaps this is only a theory to account for his infamous behavior later on-he gave away to the queer, savage feeling that sometimes takes by the throat a husband twenty years' married, when he sees, across the table, the same same face of his wedded wife, and knows that, as he has sat facing it, so must he continue to sit until day of its death or his own. Most men and all women know the spasm. It only lasts for three breaths as a rule, must be a "throw-back" to times when men and women were rather worse than they are now, and is too unpleasant to be discussed.

Dinner at the Bronckhorst's was an infliction few men cared to undergo. Bronckhorst took a pleasure in saying things that made his wife wince. When their little boy came in at dessert, Bronckhorst used to give him half a glass of wine, and, naturally enough, the poor little mite got first riotous, next miserable, and was removed screaming. Bronckhorst asked if that was the way Teddy usually behaved, and whether Mrs. Bronckhorst could not spare some of her time to teach the “little beggar decency." Mrs. Bronckhorst, who loved the boy more than her own life, tried not to cry-her spirit seemed to have been broken by her marriage. Lastly, Bronckhorst used to say:-"There! That'll do, that'll do. For God's sake try to behave like a rational