most active recruiting agent; drunkenness is another; roguery a third; while Venus has sent more men to the ranks of Mars than all other agents put together. At the time I was about this soldiering subject, I had chats with, I think I shall be within the mark when I say sixty men wearing martial livery, and I never met with one who went into the army purely out of love for it. Of the said sixty, at least thirty joined in a sort of hurry and without thinking much about it one way or the other;' ten because they were knocking about and didn't care a button what became of 'em;' while as for the remaining twenty, they altogether evaded the question or vaguely hinted that they were 'drove to it.' I am sorry, likewise, to record that not more than six out of the sixty failed to express the wish that they had never seen a red coat, and to declare that if they might have any single desire granted, it would be to cast it off for good and all. But for that matter, there never yet was a tinker, tailor, or candlestick-maker that did not consider himself thrown away in that station of life to which cruel fate had called him, and who did not believe from the bottom of his heart that had his father apprenticed him to a thingum'bob or a what d'ye call 'em, he should have made a fortune before the age of thirty-five.

Anyhow, the army list seldom or never shows a deficiency, and without doubt there is fascination in scarlet for Britons as well as bulls. Even I, who am quite old enough to know better, have experienced this fascination. In Carlyle's History of Frederick II.' occurs the story of a giant soldier who was in the habit of amusing himself by permitting the little boys of Potsdam to run in and out between his legs, until one day being out of temper, as one of the privileged urchins was darting under the human bridge, the giant clapped to his knees, and killed the little chap on the instant. Just that same craving for fun with a spice of peril in it, that, as I suppose, prompted the little Prussian boys to play with their Brobdingna

gian countryman, actuates me occasionally to pass through Charles Street, Westminster. I have to make my way past, if not between, the legs of a dozen giants, less playful maybe, but equally dangerous with the awful footguard of the 'Protestant hero's' grim old papa. There is nothing particularly rousing to the martial spirit in Charles Street as a street. In this respect it bears no comparison with Tower Hill, the chief recruiting rendezvous for the British navy. There the streets ever resound with a naval hum, and depôt doors are constantly on the swing giving ingress to naked-throated tarry-handed sailors bent on 'signing' and making one of the thirty A. B. seamen wanted immediately for her Majesty's ship Rattlesnake,' as the flaming placard in the depôt window advertises, or egress to seamen who have signed and got their advance note, and with a rollicking, homeward-bound air are hastening to change the same at the shop of obliging Lazarus Abrams, the eminent nautical clothier of Cable Street. Everywhere is jollity, everybody is his neighbour's shipmate and brother, and there pervades the whole place an exquisite cock-pit atmosphere, as of the steam of gold stewed in rum and stirred with stale tobacco-pipes. It is different in Charles Street. The air is finer and altogether more subtle-a tingling air, such as might be blown from clarions, that searches you through and through as you breathe it, and if you have the minutest seeds of martial glory anywhere about you, it finds them and stirs them up. You seem to 'sniff the battle afar off.' Doubtlessly you sniff the freer because you know that it is so very far off. If you possessed a mane you would shake it; you would neigh if you were capable. I question if any man can walk at his accustomed pace from one end of Charles Street to the other. It can't be done. He either walks along erect and with military precision, or else, conscious of his lack of mettle, he slinks along like a deserter. If I wanted to ascertain the exact amount of pluck belonging to a young fellow

I would inveigle him into Charles Street at midday and watch him narrowly, with little doubt that his gait would furnish me with the information I required.

Except for its atmosphere, however, it is as peaceful-looking a thoroughfare as can be imagined. The greengrocer, the butcher, and the milkman there follow their innocent avocations, and there is not so much gunpowder to be seen as would charge a halfpenny cracker. True, there are a few public-houses exhibiting at their doorposts and windows pictorial representations of the British soldier in every possible style of costume, executed with great dash and brilliance, and designed to settle at a glance the momentous question in the minds of the doubters and half-resolved ones. True, also, a half-dozen or so of the living originals of the pictured fancy-dress warriors may, at any hour of the day, be seen on the pavement of Charles Street; but they are not by any means the raging lions in scarlet and gold ramping about, seeking youngsters to devour, as is the vulgar error. They are not in the least ferocious, nor do they buttonhole every eligible-looking passerby, or beset him from doorways like the Jewbarkers' at the secondhand clothes shops in Holywell Street. They saunter along with seemingly the listless air of policemen on their beat, dandily swinging their canes or twiddling their moustache like 'gentlemen taking a walk,' and with nobody's but their own ease and pleasure to care for.

No one finds out the truth of this so speedily as the 'hanger about,' the will-and-won't, the would-liketo-but-don't-like young fellow invariably to be seen in the neighbourhood. The military authorities, of course, should know best about such matters, but in my opinion many and many a soldier is lost to her Majesty's army for want of being whipped to the bank as soon as he has nibbled the bait. Day after day you may see them playing about the hooks, parted by no greater distance than the width of a street, with an anxious eye on the wary old fisher on the other side, and wishing that he

may strike, and yet he doesn't strike. If he casts a glance at the foolish fish at all, it is one that says 'What are you wasting your time about here for? why don't you be off and find something better to do?" If he were only to cross over and give the hanger about an encouraging word he might secure his carcase at the small sum of one shilling as easily as, at the same price, he could buy a pound of steak at the neighbouring butcher's. This is as it seems, but it can be scarcely true. It is the business and profit of the recruiting sergeant to hook men, and it is scarcely likely that he will fling a chance away. Perhaps his experience tells him that more fish are lost by striking too quickly than by allowing them to suck at the bait until the hook is fairly in their maws. Perhaps for after all recruiting sergeants are but men-he has pity for the unlucky wretch, who, blinded by misfortune, is half resolved to find refuge in a barracks, out of that long and dreary lane, rank with weeds and thistles, and without a sign of a 'turning.' Perhaps, again, he has respect for the quiet and decorum of Charles Street, and would rather forego the trifling commission arising out of his bargain with such a customer, than risk the chance of being to-morrow beset at the rendezvous by the said customer's mother and sister, and possibly the young woman with whom he has quarrelled, and from whose presence he rushed to sell himself for twelvepence, all begging and appealing, and howling in chorus, for him to let poor dear penitent Augustus go. He knows his customers you may be sure.

From his experience he ought to do so at all events-the 'hangers about' especially. Oldest amongst his acquaintance is the tall, shabbygenteel young fellow, who, with compressed lips, and his right hand thrust resolutely in at the breast of his buttoned-up coat, approaches the end of the street, and then halts with military suddenness (with the vague intention may be of impressing the sergeant with his soldierly instinct) and gazes boldly into the jaws of the rendezvous. The gaze

says as plain as eyes can speak, 'Here I am! hang your bamboozling and wheedling! It's ask and have with me: come on!'

But the sergeant to whom the gaze is addressed doesn't come on. His eye dwells on the brave challenger but for an instant, and then he flicks a speck of dust off his correct trousers with his cane, wheels about, and saunters down the street, while the buttoned-up one, too proud to beat a retreat, takes refuge in a playbill outside the barber's shop, and makes believe that it was his interest in that that caused him to stop, and if the recruiting sergeant thought anything else he was very much mistaken. However, he remains long enough reading and rereading the bill for the sergeant to have sauntered down the street and up again, and his heart beats hopefully, fearfully, as the precise footfall, and the gentle tapping of the cane on the pavement approach closer and closer. The sergeant pauses close behind him, softly whistling The Campbells are comin', in which melody, though but faintly odorous of war, the buttoned-up one thinks he detects a meaning. With a gasp of determination he faces round on the soldier. 'Fine morning, sergeant!'

'Hey!' very brusque and loud and not at all like the key-note of a quiet and confidential conversation. 'Nice day, isn't it?'

'Ay, ay! Mag-nificent weather, sir.'

And once more wheeling, the sergeant's back alone is visible as he renews his walk down Charles Street, while the buttoned-up one turns about in wrath against the sergeant and curses his insolence. By George this is pretty! To have a flunkey earning eighteenpence a day turn his back on me in that way!' And then if he is a right-minded young man, comes the reflection, And what, after all, is it that makes me so very angry?-why, it is that I have been baulked of the chance of becoming a considerably cheaper flunkey than he is. What a lucky escape!' If he thinks so, why so it is; but the fact is, that at a single glance the keen-eyed sergeant discovered that,

as raw material for soldier building, he wasn't worth his twelvepence, no, nor sixpence, nor threepence. It is a melancholy truth, but an undeniable one, that if the buttoned-up one had said, 'Here I am; I am of not the least use to myself; take me with my clothes and seven-and-sixpence in my waistcoat pocket, to boot,' the sergeant would have wheeled off no less promptly than we have found him doing. For why? The man he buys for a shilling must have five-and-thirty inches' girth about the chest; he must have a straight leg and a bright eye; whereas, albeit the legs of the buttoned-up one were straight enough, and in all conscience long enough, he lacked the other requisites in a very marked degree. A yard measure put about his chest would lap a fair five inches, and out of his long experience, the old sergeant might have told him something much more hurtful to his feelings than he did. He might have said to him, had he been a very brutal sergeant indeed, 'You are of no use to us, sir; no foundation, sir. We don't mind spending a hundred pounds in building a soldier; but then, sir, we expect him to stand his term of lease after he is built.' It is a good thing for the widowed mother and the three little sisters of the buttoned-up one that the sergeant he addressed was not thus communicative: it is a terrible thing to go struggling on with sentence of death recorded against

you.

Another hanger about' is one whom our sergeant detests from the very bottom of his soldierly heart, which is a pity, since he more frequently encounters him than any other. He is broad-shouldered, tall enough, and in all outward respects fit stuff to make a soldier, and he marches down the short cross street that separates Charles Street from Parliament Street, as promising a young fellow as ever stepped. Evidently it is his full intention to take the queen's shilling, and he can have it for the asking for, at the hands of any one of the half-dozen manbuyers who already have their eye on him. On he comes full sail to

the corner of Charles Street, and then he halts sudden, as though he had mistaken his way, and turns short into the turning that leads to Westminster Abbey. How can they-the recruiting officers-account for behaviour so eccentric, when he himself is at a loss to do so? After all his long consideration on the subject, and final determination too! This morning he had quite made up his mind. There

was no use in striving any longer against his devilish bad luck, he would enlist that very day. Scarcely five minutes ago he passed the Horse Guards resolute, and feeling even almost enthusiastic with his plan. Now, confound it! he is as hesitating. He can't turn back, that would seem childish; but what he will do is to walk slowly, and if either of those fellows with the ribbons-they must have seen him -choose to come after him, why, there'll be an end of it; he is in the hands of fate, and is nobly content to abide the issue!

That is the way he pacifies his reproving conscience; but what contemptible rubbish it all is!

In

the hands of fate, indeed! It always was that young man's weakness to put himself into the hands of fate. As a boy he used to toss a halfpenny, heads or tails whether or no he should play truant; but does he ever recollect a time when, the toss being against his inclination, he pocketed the piece, and bowed to fate's decree? Not he. He said the piece didn't 'spin' properly, or that it fell on its edge; anyhow, he invariably tossed and tossed again till he got what he wanted. His weakness then is his weakness now, and knowing it, no sergeant of the half a dozen is weak enough to go after him. Why should he? He will be there again to-morrow, or if not him his brother, and still again tomorrow; but he'll never enlist. The only thing that makes this shy one worth angling for, is, that if by chance he should be hooked, his redemption by smart money' (a guinea, of which the sergeant gets a big share,) is as certain as that ere he has slept on it,' the monstrous absurdity of the act he has perpetrated will make itself apparent to him.