The anecdotes in the book are
legion, and the actors in them range from troopers to generals, and beyond.
KING EDWARD, their present Majesties, Sir DOUGLAS HAIG ("a nice-looking
clean little boy in an Eton jacket and collar") all figure in the author's
pictures of the past, which include also a highly characteristic study of
WILLIAM THE FRIGHTFUL, congratulating the "citizens of Salisbury,"
represented by a handful of curious urchins, upon their "beautiful and
ancient cathedral." (One can fancy the unspoken addition in the Imperial
mind, "And what a target for Bertha!") Many of Sir GEORGE'S pages are
devoted to stories of the Boer campaign, that old unhappy far-off thing
that seems somehow, as one looks back to-day, further off than Waterloo. In
fine, a book that all Service folk, and many besides them, will find a
treasure-house of good stories, of exactly the kind that should be certain
of their appeal now, when we are all, or like to think ourselves, soldiers
in the greatest of England's wars, and inheritors of the traditions here
shown in the making.
* * * * *
A short hour's reading and you will have laid down, with a sigh for its
brevity, a little book that is a very model of artistry.
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