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Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
page 32 of 121 (26%)
that Mr. Johnson bought him a commission in the same cavalry regiment
that the General's grandson (whose commission had been given him by the
Iron Duke) was in, and that he was quite content to be the butt of the
mess where Jackanapes was the hero; and that when Jackanapes wrote home
to Miss Jessamine, Tony wrote with the same purpose to his mother;
namely, to demand her congratulations that they were on active service
at last, and were ordered to the front. And he added a postscript to the
effect that she could have no idea how popular Jackanapes was, nor how
splendidly he rode the wonderful red charger whom he had named after his
old friend Lollo.

* * * * *

"Sound Retire!"

A Boy Trumpeter, grave with the weight of responsibilities and
accoutrements beyond his years, and stained, so that his own mother
would not have known him, with the sweat and dust of battle, did as he
was bid; and then pushing his trumpet pettishly aside, adjusted his
weary legs for the hundredth time to the horse which was a world too big
for him, and muttering, "'Tain't a pretty tune," tried to see something
of this, his first engagement, before it came to an end.

Being literally in the thick of it, he could seen less or known less of
what happened in that particular skirmish if he had been at home in
England. For many good reasons; including dust and smoke, and that what
attention he dared distract from his commanding officer was pretty well
absorbed by keeping his hard-mouthed troop-horse in hand, under pain of
execration by his neighbors in the melde. By-and-by, when the newspapers
came out, if he could get a look at one before it was thumbed to bits,
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