In those days, too, Baden-Powell was famous as an artist, and his sketches, with the left hand, were admired and commented upon by masters as well as boys.  One can fancy with what great reverence B.-P. the caricaturist must have looked upon Thackeray’s pencil in the Charterhouse Library—­the pencil of the great man whose shilling he was then hoarding with the jealousy of a miser.

Baden-Powell’s quality as a schoolboy may be judged by his later life.  Few things are so pleasant about him as his intense loyalty to his old school.  Before leaving India for England in 1898, he wrote to Mr. Girdlestone, asking his old House Master to send to his London address a list of all the interesting fixtures at Charterhouse, so that he might see what was going on directly he arrived in England.  Whenever he is in the old country he pays a visit to Godalming, and one of his last acts before leaving for South Africa was to call on Dr. Haig-Brown at the Charterhouse, where he first went to school, to bid his old Head a brave and cheerful farewell.  And what was more English, what more typical of the public-school man, than the letter B.-P. sent to England from bombarded Mafeking, saying that he had been looking up old Carthusians to join him in a dinner on Founder’s Day?  In India he never allowed the 12th of December to pass unhonoured, and whether he be journeying through the bush of the Gold Coast Hinterland, or riding across the South African veldt, he is always quick to recognise the face of an old schoolboy, or the Carthusian colours in a necktie.

The estimation in which Charterhouse holds Baden-Powell may be seen in the result of a “whip round” for the hero besieged in Mafeking—­nearly a hundred and forty cases of useful goods.  These cases contained, among other things, 962 lbs. of tobacco, 1200 cigars, 23,000 cigarettes, 640 pipes, 160 dozens of wine and spirits, seven cases of provisions, 490 shirts, 730 “helmets,” 1350 pairs of socks, and 168 pairs of boots.  In addition to this over L1000 was raised by Old Carthusians to be sent out in its own useful shape.

Popularity such as this has been justly earned.  Baden-Powell’s record as a Carthusian will, as we have seen, bear looking into, and though the old school may boast of more brilliant scholars and more world-wide names on its roll, I do not think it has ever sent into the world a more useful all-round man, a more intrepid soldier, a more upright gentleman, and a more loyal son.  And one knows that there is no British cheer so likely to touch the heart of Baden-Powell when he returns to England as the great roar which will assuredly go up in Charterhouse when this Old Boy comes beaming into the Great Hall.

CHAPTER V

THE DASHING HUSSAR