The Tenth Hussars were picked men, at least physically. Morally and mentally they were also above the average, which was not high, of the army. A youth like O'Reilly, full of generous impulses and lofty aspirations, would have been strangely out of place among the men whom the latest novelist has given to the world as representative British soldiers. But the troopers of the Tenth were far above such ruthless swashbucklers. Types of the latter were to be met with at the great military musters of Aldershot and the Curragh. "Are Mulvaney and Learoyd and Ortheris fair representatives of the British private?" was a question put to the ex-private of Troop D, of the Tenth Hussars, shortly after the appearance on the literary stage of these Anglo-Indian musketeers. "They are not average soldiers," he replied, "but they are not caricatures. I have seen men fully as depraved as Mr. Kipling's hero, who boasted of having 'put his foot through every one of the Ten Commandments between "reveillé" and "lightsout."' I met one at a review on the Curragh, who told me, without the slightest apparent thought of the atrocity of the deed, how he and his comrades had once roasted a Hindoo gentleman to death, out of pure, wanton savagery. He did not consider it a crime to be ashamed of, nor a feat to boast of. It was simply an incident in his campaign experience."

It would be a gross libel to say that the British army is