I confess that my feelings were not of the pleasantest as I sat at my late London breakfast somewhere about noon the next day, and I was fain to admit to my special friend that I had put myself in an awkward, if not an unenviable, position.  However, I was in for it, and being naturally of an elastic temperament, began to cast about for a cheerful view of my undertaking.  In the course of the day preliminaries were arranged and reduced to writing with all the care which Englishmen practice in such affairs of “honor.”  I only stipulated that I should be allowed to use a stout walking-stick in my encounter; that I should be kept informed as to the detail for guard; that I should be freely allowed to see the regiment at drill and in quarters; and that I should select my time of attack within a fortnight, giving a few hours’ notice to all parties concerned, so as to ensure their presence as witnesses.

Every one who has ever visited London has seen and admired the gigantic horsemen who sit on mighty black steeds, one on either side of the archway facing Whitehall, and who are presumed at once to guard the commander-in-chief’s head-quarters and to serve as “specimen bricks” of the finest cavalry corps in the world.  Splendid fellows they are!  None of them are under six feet high, and many of them are considerably above that mark.  They wear polished steel corselets and helmets, white buck-skin trowsers, high jack-boots, and at the time of which I write their arms consisted of a brace of heavy, single-barreled pistols in holsters, a carbine and a sabre.  The firearms were, under ordinary circumstances, not loaded, and the sabre was held at a “carry” in the right hand.  This last was the weapon against which I must guard, and I accordingly placed a traveling cap and a coat in the hands of a discreet tailor, who sewed steel bands into the crown of one and into the shoulders of the other, in such a way as afforded very efficient protection against a possible downward cut.

Besides attending to these defensive preparations, I at once looked about for a competent horseman with military experience who could give me some practical hints as to encounters between infantry and cavalry, and, singularly enough, was thrown in with that gallant young officer who rode into immortality in front of the Light Brigade at Balaklava a few years afterward.  I learned that he was a superb horseman, was down upon the English system of cavalry training, and was using pen and tongue to bring about a change.  A sudden inspiration led me to take him into my confidence, as the terms of our agreement permitted me to do.  He caught the idea with enthusiasm.  What an argument it would be in favor of his new system if a mere civilian unhorsed a Guardsman trained after the old fashion!  For a week he drilled me more or less every day in getting him off his horse in various ways, and I speedily became a proficient in the art, he meanwhile gaining some new ideas on the subject, which were duly printed in his well-known book.