tread on a worm--not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his
buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English
beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm that turned. For the
sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, "The Worm,"
although he really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair on his
face, and with a waist like a girl's, when he came out to the Second
"Shikarris" and was made unhappy in several ways. The "Shikarris" are a
high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do things well--play a banjo,
or ride more than little, or sing, or act--to get on with them.

The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and knock chips out of gate
posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a time. He objected
to whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, kept very much to
himself, and wrote to his Mamma and sisters at Home. Four of these five
things were vices which the "Shikarris" objected to and set themselves to
eradicate. Everyone knows how subalterns are, by brother subalterns,
softened and not permitted to be ferocious. It is good and wholesome, and
does no one any harm, unless tempers are lost; and then there is trouble.
There was a man once--but that is another story.

The "Shikarris" _shikarred_ The Worm very much, and he bore everything
without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed so
pink, that his education was cut short, and he was left to his own devices
by everyone except the Senior Subaltern who continued to make life a
burden to The Worm. The Senior Subaltern meant no harm; but his chaff was
coarse, and he didn't quite understand where to stop. He had been waiting
too long for his Company; and that always sours a man. Also he was in
love, which made him worse.

One day, after he had borrowed The Worm's trap for a lady who never