of a kind that one is not likely to forget.  My drill sergeant happened to be there.  I saw him engaged in a whispered conference with one of the gymnasium instructors.  A few minutes later the instructor came to me and urged me to enter the boxing contest which was going on in the middle of the floor, and which was the favourite amusement of the evening.  I had no desire for such amusement, and frankly told him so; but he was not to be put off.

He said, “There is a rule of the gym, that men who come here in the evening, who are very largely given their own way, are nevertheless obliged to do what they are told; and you may escape serious trouble by attending to my orders.”

I still demurred, but was forced to the ring side, a roped enclosure, with a pair of boxing gloves and an instructor to take care of the proceedings.  When the gloves were fastened on my hands, I noticed that my opponent was one of the assistant instructors, and it occurred to me that I was in for a thrashing; and I certainly was.

They must have made up their minds that a good thrashing would wake me up from the point of view of the parade ground, and the assistant instructor proceeded to administer it.  I knew nothing whatever of boxing, and could put up but a weak defence.  I was knocked down several times, one of my eyes partly closed, and my nose smashed, and one of my arms rendered almost useless.

When away from the gymnasium at my barrack-room that night, I did some hard thinking.  A room-mate whose cot was next to mine, was something of a boxer.  He possessed two pairs of gloves.  He had often urged me to accommodate him as an opponent, but I had steadily refused.

On learning of my plight, he laughed loudly.  So did my other room-mates as they learned of it.  That night, before “taps,” I bound myself to an arrangement by which I was to pay my room-mate two-thirds of my regimental pay per week for instruction in handling the gloves.  He gave me an hour each night for six weeks.  At the end of the first week, I had gained an advantage over him.  I had a very long reach, and a body as lithe as a panther.  I gave up prayer meetings, lectures, and socials, and devoted my self religiously to what is called “the noble art of self-defence.”

If my drill sergeant imagined that a thrashing would wake me up, he was a very good judge.  It did.  Incidentally, it woke others up, too.  It woke my new instructor up, and half a dozen of my room-mates.  At the end of my six weeks’ training, by dint of perseverance and application to the thing in hand, I had succeeded in this new type of education thrust upon me.

During all this time, I had not visited the gymnasium in the evening, but was remembered there by all who had noticed the process of my awakening.  One night, I modestly approached the chief instructor and asked him if I might not have another lesson by the man who had taught me the first.  He remembered the occasion and laughed, laughed at the memory of it, and laughed at the brogue and what he supposed to be the temerity of my asking.  In asking, I had made my brogue just a little thicker, and my manner just as diffident and modest as possible.