Thus warned, the Sage and Father TIME passed through the hall and entered the smoking-room.  Stretched at full length on a couple of chairs was a Private, lazily sipping a glass of brandy and soda-water, that had just been supplied to him by an officer of his own battalion.  On withdrawing, the A.D.C. greeted the commissioned waiter who answered to the name of CHARLIE.

“Rather rough, eh?” said he, with a glance at a tray containing a cork-screw and an empty bottle.

“A bit better than Bermuda.  If we don’t coerce them, we must be polite.  After all, fagging turned out the heroes of Winchester and Westminster, and wasn’t Waterloo won on the playing-fields of Eton?”

“Rather a dangerous game, isn’t it?” observed Mr. Punch.  “You’ll have to fall in next, and TOMMY will inspect you, and give you a couple of days’ extra drill for not having cleaned your rifle!”

“Well, if I don’t look after my arms, I shall have merited the punishment; and, after all, it will only be a case of turn and turn about,” was the reply.  Then the A.D.C. added, “Hang me, too, I believe, with all we fellows have to do nowadays, that if we did change with TOMMY ATKINS, we, and not he, would have the best of the bargain!”

[Illustration]

Leaving the Soldiers’ Club, Mr. Punch and Father TIME continued their journey.  They had not proceeded far, when the A.D.C. invited them to enter a building known as the Museum.

“It really is a most useful and interesting institution,” said the officer of the Planet Mars.  “Here, you see, we have portrait models of the officer of the past and present.  In the past, you will notice, he sacrificed everything to athletic sports—­if he could fence, shoot, hunt, and play cricket, polo, and football, he was quite satisfied.  His successor of to-day devotes all his time to study.  He must master the higher branches of mathematics before he is considered fit to inspect the rear-rank of a company, and know the modern languages before he can be entrusted with the command of a left half-battalion.  Here again we have the uniform of an officer in peace and war—­swagger and gold lace on the one side, and stern simplicity and kharki on the other.”

In another room Mr. Punch and Father TIME discovered that everyone was fast asleep.  There was a Cabinet Minister supported by two minor officials—­all three of them absolutely unconscious.  There were any number of Generals decorated from belt to neck—­any quantity of higher-grade clerks—­one and all slumbering:  “This is called the Intelligence Department of the Army,” explained the A.D.C.  “You have nothing like it in England?”

“Nothing!” returned Mr. Punch, as he disappeared.

* * * * *

VISIT TO MERCURY.

[Illustration]

Mr. Punch and Father Time were once again whirling on their way through boundless space.