school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect,
I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to
our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy
cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles
(for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitive
to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced
round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure,
if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only.
Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather
wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was
not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly
of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved
name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the
local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was
a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing,
remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on the
way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury,
and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, it
contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian,
who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept
everything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon was
just putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the properties
in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke
enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns
and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance,
and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard
against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse
proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor.
Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits
were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of