Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in the style
of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de Miramel (of
to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in indifferent bad French,
in which my lady refers sorrowfully to "_ma bague diamantee_."
* * * * *
Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The other
day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the following
half-obliterated words:--
"ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of
lanciers. Sept. 1815";
and freshly scratched above the inscription:--
"Better at piking than at speling.
22nd K.R. Lancers. JAS. BARNET. Sept. 1917."
The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like another.
There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd King's
Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium for
self-expression.
Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or so.
There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring of
red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused
safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my soul!"
he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a year for
minnows since 1815.
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