Rovering To Success

ROCK NUMBER ONE

HORSES

DICK was not bad at heart. He was a great friend of mine, and I taught him lots of little tricks. For one thing, he would stand for hours without moving away if I left him with orders to stop there. On one occasion, on the North-West Frontier of India, this was jolly useful to me. One of the horses of my squadron had broken away from the camp in the night and disappeared. This horse, A44, was one of the best in the regiment, and was ridden by the regimental-sergeant-major, so everybody was in a great stew about his disappearance, especially the colonel.

So I started off on Dick to try and find him. It had been raining and snowing all night, so I soon found his tracks and followed them, sometimes in mud, sometimes in snow. They led me off into wild country among the mountains, often over rocky stony ground where tracking was most difficult.

After some hours of work, and after going over some miles of country, the tracks led straight up a mountain where it was much easier for me to go on foot So I got off Dick and told him to wait there, and off I went scrambling up the rocks and gullies, until at last I was rewarded by finding old A44, shivering with cold, bleeding from many cuts, having evidently been terrified out of his life. It took a long time to get him down the mountain-side again, but when at last we reached the foot, there was Dick calmly awaiting us - and I was soon riding home in triumph, leading my prize.

Poor A44 never got over it - he was never the same horse again, and at last got a bad fever and died. But the colonel was very pleased with what Dick and I had done in getting him back - and it was jolly lucky for me later on.

It was in this way.

Dick was my "first charger". That is, although he was my own property, I was not allowed to use him for any purpose except for riding on parade or just quiet riding about. I must not drive him in harness, or ride him hunting.

Well, one day when I was riding him near our camp, I saw a fine wild boar scampering across the fields. This was too much for me. I called to my Indian groom to hand me my spear, and off I went on Dick, forgetting all rules and orders, to catch that pig. After a great gallop we got close up to him, and I reached forward to lunge the spear into him, when Dick stopped short and stood up on end. He very nearly sent me flying to the ground by doing so. The reason for this was that among other tricks I had taught him was that whenever I made a low bow to anybody he was to rear up on his hind legs and paw the air. So, when I stooped over to stab the boar, Dick thought I was bowing, and played his part accordingly; and stood up.

The pig might easily have escaped us while Dick was playing the ass, but the pig was clever, and he said to himself; "Now's my time to kill those two," so instead of running away he turned and came for us.

As he rushed at us I prepared to receive him on my spear, but as I had to lean over to do this up went Dick again, my spear missed, and the boar got a good cut with his tusks into Dick's hind legs, fortunately missing his stomach. A second time the same thing happened. But when he came at us yet again I gave Dick such a dig in the ribs with my spurs as made him jump into the air instead of rearing, and as the boar passed under him I jabbed the spear down into his back and killed him.

But the awful thing was how to face the colonel and explain these wounds in my first charger's legs.

"Please, sir," I said, "a boar attacked me, and I had to defend myself!"

"Yes, that's all very well," said the colonel, "but how did you come to have a spear in your hand when riding your first charger? Let me see, isn't that the horse that helped you to catch A44 when he ran away? Yes. Well, youngster, don't go riding your first charger after pig again."

I love a horse. A roll of honour hangs on my wall of the different horses I have had as my companions at different times of my life.

They have been good friends to me, whether campaigning, hunting, playing polo or racing.

Racing is a truly attractive sport. It stirs the blood to see those splendid animals, the best of their breed, trained to the minute, putting forth all their powers to win under the direction of masters of the art of race-riding.

But like everything else, watching races can pall on one by constant repetition, just as eating good roast beef continually would pall if there were not some salt to savour it.

There are not many regular race-goers who do not savour their racing by having a bit of m6ney on the race. In fact, a fellow who attended meetings without betting would be looked upon as a bit of an eccentric.

It is the chance of winning or losing one's money that supplies the constant attraction rather than simple admiration of the horse.

In fact, a very considerable portion of the racing sportsmen do not bother to attend the meetings, but do their betting comfortably in their own armchair and the telephone.

They thus make themselves the playthings of chance if not the dupes of something worse. They do no good to anybody - unless it is the bookies.

Akin to the so-called national "sport" of horse-racing comes that of boxing.

A good boxing competition gives one the sight of fine men in their prime, trained to the ounce, showing the highest skill, pluck and endurance in carrying out their attack and defence under strict rules of fair play and good temper.

I must confess, however, personally to having enjoyed a boxing tournament of Boy Scouts far more than that of a big and much advertised fight of champions at the Albert Hall.

One was the real sporting effort for the sake of sport, the other being a money-making scheme on a large scale.

In the Albert Hall case, each of the performers received a huge fee of some thousands of pounds for a few minutes hard punching (and a good deal of clinching), while the onlookers paid heavily for the privilege of seeing them do so, the man who really scored being the financial promoter of the show.

This does not compare well with the "good old days" when Tom Spring fought Jack Langan for the championship belt of Great Britain at Worcester in 1824.

The fight ran to seventy-seven rounds before Langan was finally knocked out.

Some sport, and not much money-grubbing about it!

As an old footballer myself I love football, as I expect you do: you and I look upon it as one of the finest games in the world. There is nothing like it for giving health and strength, activity and pluck, discipline and good temper and, above all, the great lesson of playing the game unselfishly for your side and not for your own glorification.

A grand game! and an exciting one to watch, and for this reason some young men are "sucked in" with the rest of the crowd to become regular lookers on instead of regular players. It is always much better to play any game, however inexpertly, than to stand on the side lines and cheer the playing of others.

Nowadays there are few sports which are not the subject of gambllng, and you may think that littie harm is done by it Everybody does it, you may argue. It is human nature to gamble, and you can't alter human nature. So why worry?

I know there is satisfaction in winning, whether by luck or by study of form, but personally I hate to see true sport turned into a money-making concern by promoters and bookmakers concerned only in making a personal profit. The one aim of these people is to take your money in one way or another, and as one who has seen a good lot of this humbug I only want to sound a wasning. It is, then, your look-out if you are taken in.

Many a man has made himseff rich through betting - that is, by being a bookie - but no one of my acquaintance has done the same thing from the other side of the fence - that is, as a punter. It's worth thinking about.

That is a question you may naturally ask. Well, the truth is that it is a fool's game for the bettor; and unless he is very well off it is a dangerous game, too.

The sight of someone winning a pile has tempted many a fellow to chuck slogging and to try for a turn of luck: it looks like a new way of getting rich quickly, but too often it proves to be the way to get rapidly broke. Moreover, it tends to breed a nasty trait in character - cupidity. And where cupidity comes in, honesty goes out.

Loads of fellows have thought betting was an easy way to make money, and have plunged deeper than they could afford. Then, perhaps, has come the worse crime when they have to steal or embezzle money to pay their debts.

That is the wretched story that one sees repeated over and over again in the papers, but the warning is rarely heeded. The fact is that millions of pounds every year change hands between bookmakers and their clients, and you have only to see the opulent style in which most bookmakers live to know which side benefits by the exchange.

After reading all this you will think me an awful spoil-sport. Years ago bull-baiting was put a stop to by a lot of people who drew up a petition to Parliament against it.

Their opponents afterwards said of them that they did this not so much on account of the cruelty to the bull, as because they hated seeing other people enjoying themselves. Well, you may think that it is much the same with me. But it isn't. I have enjoyed true sport and enjoy it still as much as anybody; indeed, I think I enjoy it more than most people. And better than any sport I like to see other people enjoying themselves, and the more there are of them doing it the happier I feel.

But such a lot of fellows go off on the wrong tack, imagining they are out after sport when they pour their hard-earned wages into the pockets of other people. In my case it is a question of "once bitten, twice shy". I once made a bet when a boy at school, and lost. I backed a horse named Pax for the City and Suburban. I put eighteen-pence on him, and went broke over it! And that was the end of my betting at race meetings.

On the other hand, I have always loved amateur racing when I knew the horses and their riders, or better still, when I had a horse in the race trained and ridden by myself. That is a very different thing from looking on at a lot of strange horses running or to betting on a race from an armchair at home. It was active sport, not passive paying out.

What is sport? To my mind it is the active playing the game by the individual in place of being merely one of the crowd looking on or having your sport done for you. Why, I don't even have my hair cut by another man; I do it for myself - so far as I have hair!

You will say: "It is all very well to criticise looking on at sport; but -

What is a fellow to do with his spare time?

How is he to make money?

How is he to get enjoyment if he doesn't go to races and football?"

Well, it is a bit of a conundrum to lay down any programme that will suit every kind of young man, whether he is rich or poor, or of moderate means, and whether he lives in a town or away out in the country, for winter or summer, singly or in company, indoors or out, day or evening.

Could you suggest an answer yourself?

I guess not. But here is a suggestion in broad principles that may be helpful.

The great secret is to have as your motto these words -

To float over a dead calm sea is uninteresting, but it a very different thing in a nice breeze when there is a bit of a sea on and you always have a wave in front of you to be negotiated, and no sooner are you over that one than another rises before you.

In paddling your way through life you will find the joy of it in always having a fresh wave of work or activity ahead of you to tackle.

So, in answer...

By true sport I mean any kind of game and activity that does you good and which you play yourself instead of looking on. I know that playing-fields are scarce at many centres, and they won't accommodate all the fellows who want to play. Still, there is room for thousands more than those who use them to-day, and also there are playing-fields of a different kind which so far have been little made use of. I could suggest a good many games to meet one condition or another, but I allow it is hard to fit them in to suit all.

The main thing is for you to think out for yourself which sport would best meet the conditions and surroundings in which you find yourself.

But if you can't hit off a line for yourself I can suggest one at any rate that will meet all the above conditions, and you will find it described in the last Chapter, on Rovering.

Under the head of a true sport, and one which is open to all alike without much expense, is mountaineering.

"Mountaineering?" you may say. "A lot of mountaineering you can do in England."

Well, you can do a good deal, and I will show you how. To climb a twenty thousand foot mountain is a glorious achievement, but don't think that you are hanging on by your eyelids all the while: the difficulty that tests the climbing powers of your fingers and toes only comes once m a while. If you fall there, you go down two or three thousand feet before you bump. But you can get an equally effective fall at two or three hundred feet in climbing an equally difficult rock face at home in your own country. You can get just as much excitement out of climbing on a small mountain, which needs just the same nerve, endurance, and skill, and the same good comradeship on the rope.

At the same time it is a very dangerous practice if you have not been carefully trained for it and have not an -experienced climber to lead you.

"It isn't the height of the mountain that counts so much as the difficult bit to be overcome." That is what a leader of an expedition to Mount Everest said to me in talking of the possibilities of rock climbing for young men in the British Isles. The only wonder is that it is not better known and more practised as a sport This is largely because fellows don't realise that they can carry it out in almost every part of Great Britain.

If you can't get a mountain you can generally get a group of rocks, a quarry, or cliffs. These all give splendid practice for a team of three or four mountaineers with a climbing rope. Occasionally you hear of a man climbing alone, which might sound particularly exciting, but this is all wrong. Once is enough just to give you confidence in yourself, but it does not do to be left helpless from a fall or a sprain. Climbing ought, indeed must, be done in teams, and for that reason it is good. Each man on the rope has to make himself efficient, so as to be helpful to the others. That is a good practical lesson in itself.

Climbing is the best possible physical developer of nerve and muscle and endurance. A good rock climber cannot be a weakling. And it is ripping good sport.

Then it needs observation - eye for country and resourcefulness.

I once accompanied the Italian Alpini troops campaigning in the high Alps. These men are trained entirely for mountain work, being all of them recruited from the inhabitants of the mountains. We sighted the enemy on the great snow slopes on the other side of a gorge some two thousand feet deep and two or three miles across. The officers were given the general plan of attack. Then they spread themselves out at intervals in a long line, and sat down and gazed at the opposite slopes and cliffs. They studied them through their glasses, each seeking out a particular line for his detachment to climb, and noticing the landmarks by which he should find it as he worked upwards from below.

The selecting one's line and picking it up as you climb is what gives rock and mountain climbing a never-ending variety and interest and helps one to be successful or to be merely a moderate climber according as you become good at observation.

Then there is the moral effect of learning to face a difficulty, even when it looks like an impossibility, with calm determination and good cheer.

You thus get to face the difficulties of life in the same spirit, and by sticking to it and trying the different ways round or over the obstacle you get there in the end.

Lastly there is your soul. A funny thing to find in rock climbing, but there it is. Climb in company, but when you reach a glorious summit with its vast unearth-like outlook, sit down alone apart and think.

And as you think, drink in the wonderful inspiration of it all.

When you come down to earth again you will find yourself another man in body and mind and spirit.

I find that the habit of doing things for oneself grows upon one and spreads into all branches of one's daily occupation. And a very healthy habit it is; "if you want a thing done, do it yourself" becomes the order of the day.

Even little odd jobs about the house begin to have a fascination, and they teach you a tremendous lot. You get to hammer the nail instead of your thumb with a little practice, and become neat-fingered with the knowledge of electricity when you re-fit your electric-light plugs.

When the war came and deprived us of our supplies of vegetables and fruits, it brought a blessing in teaching many of us to become gardeners and to grow our own food. Allotments have done more harm to the public-houses than any temperance reforms in Parliament, and at the same time more good to the health and contentment of men than any amount of sanitary or political reforms. His own garden is a grand hobby ground for any man, and the best rest-cure that a hard worker can have. It gives to very many their first real taste of the open air and it has brought to them their first introduction of the growth of plants as well as of bugs and grubs - i.e. Nature Lore.

It is the natural bent of every boy to make things with his hands. So many men lose the attraction as they grow older, but where they keep it up this natural form of self-expression and the fulfilment of the natural desire to produce becomes a habit and one which fills many an empty life. A man with hobbies never has time to waste, time never hangs heavy on his hands, and he is not easily dragged away to other less active attractions. Hobbies are a safeguard to him.

Hobbies and handcraft lead to skill, for a man who puts his whole thought and spare energy into making things cannot help developing a considerable amount of perfection in his work; and where the mind is applied to the hand, imagination and resource step in, and from hobby work a man often goes on to be an inventor.

When you look around your room or your office or your workshop you will find a hundred articles within sight which have been the outcome of invention by one man or another. So it comes in your power if you are a hobby man to evolve some invention which may not only help you financially, but which may be a blessing to your fellow-men.

Often, too, through the practice of hobbies a man has found one which, although entirely apart from his present profession, has proved to be the thing for which he was by nature best fitted, and it has shown him a new line and a real career for him to take up; and if he had previously been a round peg in a square hole he has now found the round hole in which he is properly fitted.

But hobbies, at any rate very frequentiy, if not generally, can bring in money where a man is in need of it, and although I do not advocate pursuing money for money's sake, I quite recognise the need of a certain amount of it to enable you to carry on and not to be a drag on other people.

In the old hunting book, Jorrocks, there is a celebrated character, "Jogglebury Crowdy", whose great hobby was cutting sticks in the hedgerows and woods with a view to making them into walking sticks. I too have that hobby amongst my many others, and though it doesn't sound a very exciting one, yet when you come to practise it it is sufficiently attractive to lead you mile after mile in the hunt for a good stick which would otherwise be untold weariness; and the satisfaction of securing, of straightening and curing a good stick is very great. I only mention this as showing how the very simplest hobby, one that could be practised by anybody, has its attraction.

Moreover, it has its paying value, and many a boy I know of who has taken up this particular line finds himself able to earn many an honest shilling by it.

But a man who finds out his particular line in hobby can often make it pay well, and the money gained by one's own efforts is very much sweeter than that received from a lucky bet.

Music, pictures, sculpture and drama, are all easily available hobbies for men in towns, and there is no need for loafing where there are municipal galleries, museums and concerts, etc.

But it is not merely the passive enjoyment of these that I recommend. It is your active self-expression of them that pays.

By self-expression I mean such work as writing poetry, carpentering, playing the fiddle, clay modelling, sketching, and so on. Also there is interest in collecting stamps, coins, fossils, curios, bugs, or any blooming thing.

Nature rambles in the country for studying birds, plants, or animals. You can go in for chicken rearing, fruit grow- ing, jam boiling, rabbit keeping, or making moccasins, or any old thing that you like. There are hundreds of things to choose from; and when you have found the one that grips you it will repay you, not perhaps in cash but in life-filling satisfaction.

As regards money, for most of us an assured income is necessary to save us from being a drag on others, and to put us on the road towards enjoying life and helping others to enjoy it.

So instead of throwing your cash away on the chance of getting more back out of some less lucky fellow let us Use the time in making a sure income in return for honest work.

And this means, as a first step, preparing oneself for a job in life. A good many boys see a chance of getting a well-paid job or are urged by their parents to take it, but they forget to look at the other end and to see how it is going to benefit them later on.

Too many of these well-paid boys' jobs lead to nothing, and leave the lad stranded just at the important moment of his life when he should be going up the steps of a career that will pay him well in the end.

Then a very usual fault is that even when a young man has found a line that has good prospects in it he takes it up because the job looks like suiting him without first con- sidering whether he is really suited to the job; and eventu- ally he finds, or his employers find for him, that he is not the right man for it, and out he goes to try and find something else to do. He is a square peg in a round hole, and so he never gets on.

The thing is to find out what kind of work you are best suited for, and if at first you take a different job that will give you pay you should still keep your eye on the right line and go for that directly you get your chance. At the same time beware of always thinking that the grass is greener in the next field.

If you are a square peg keep your eye on a square hole and see that you get there.

"Get the scent in your nostrils and keep your nose to the ground, and don't worry too much about the end of the chase. The fun of the thing is in the run and not in the finish. When I was a young fellow out of a place) I always made it a rule to take the first job that offered, and to use it for a time till I could catch a better. You can catch a minnow with a worm, and a bass with your minnow. With the bass you can catch an otter, and then you've got something worth skinning."

That is the advice of The Self-Made Merchant to his Son. If that "something worth skinning" is to make a fur coat of comfort for someone else, then you have reached success in your business career; you have won your way not only to making a living, but also in making your work of service to others.

And that means enjoying your life.

If you should wish to take the above advice and find some sort of paid occupation until you can hit on a congenial opening, you might do worse than enlist in the Royal Air Force, since the service is not long, is well paid and the work is of intense interest.

But what is more it is actually educative and if taken in that spirit gives a final finish to your school training. You are meantime gaining character, and "a character" such as will enable you the better to take up a career when you see one open to you.

Similarly, should you contemplate life in one of the Dominions, the best way to gain local experience and friends is to serve for a time in the Constabulary of the country. This similarly is educative and well paid and character building.

Since the war our critics tell us that the nation has gone very much to the bad. Well, I don't know. I see that the Headmaster of the City of London School says that the boys of to-day are more energetic than those of yester- day, and are getting better every day. That is a promising sign at any rate.

Certainly there are more people who save money now- and fewer who spit. I don't know that the two points have any connection, but they just happen to be facts.

I have suggested in the coming pages that by practice of self-restraint you gain character; but you also gain another thing-at least sometim~and that is money.

I never suggest to people to do what I would not do myself and I have done a bit of this thrift in my time that I am recommending to you.

I was the seventh of a family of ten and my father was a clergyman who died when I was three. So I was not brought up in what you might call affluence, and when I got into the Army I had to live as best I could on my pay, which was pretty small.

It was a bit of a struggle. It meant among other things no breakfast or midday meal at the Mess, no smokes, no liquor, and it meant earning what I could outside my military duties by drawing and writing.

But I worked hard and enjoyed the struggle. And I "got there" in the end. I had any amount of luck, but I must add that I snatched a good deal of this for myself. What is commonly called luck is really largely the power to spot your opportunity and to jump at it and seize it. Too many fellows sit down and wait for luck to come to them and then complain because it never does so.

The curious thing was that I got on faster than I wanted to. I had no real ambition to do anything more than be able to keep myself without drawing on my family to help. If I could do something to help them, so much the better. And I loved my work because it was among the men and horses. I was perfectly content.

But when promotion came to me and I was moved up to higher standing, although the pay was better and the prospects great, I did not like the idea, and I only wanted to he left where I was. I remember well asking my colonel whether I could not decline the promotion, but he laughingly pointed out that that was impossible and up I had to go. I got on; but it was largely thanks to practising thrift in the beginning.

I was amused a day or two ago in looking through some of my early diaries of journeys and visits to friends; how religiously I kept account of every penny I spent, and how triumphantly I recorded every penny that came in to be available for spending! I could speak, if anybody could, to the truth of the saying, "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves."

And I was not only able to help myself in this way but was able to give advice from my own experience and a lead to a lot of my friends among the men in my squadron in the same direction. As a consequence, canteen profits went down, but savings-bank balances went up. The men were healthier and happier, and, on leaving the Service, had money in hand with which to set themselves up in business or in private life.

So too it can be with you who read this. If you have no money, make it-somehow; but make it. A rainy day may come and you ought not then to be a drag on other people's resources. Think of that rainy day, too many fellows forget about it and suffer in the end for their neglect.

If you already have some money, that is no reason for chucking it away; freeze to it. If you have to spend it at all, spend it on other people and not only on your own amusement.

You may be rich, but there is one thing you can't afford-that is if you are a good sort-you can't afford to spend money on your own luxuries while there are people around you wanting the necessaries of life.

But look here, when I talk of thriftiness I don't mean meanness. Be as mean as you like towards yourself, save from your own expenditure but not from what you would spend on other people.

For myself I enjoyed life just as much as my fellows. I hunted, I played polo, I enjoyed pig-sticking and big-game hunting, but I did not buy high-class-priced animals for the sport, I bought unbroken, untrained ones at litde cost and had all the fun and interest of training them mysel~ Some people buy things almost because they are expensive; others don't. One man will buy a new coat the moment his previous one shows any sign of dirt or surface wear, another when his coat is worn has it turned and uses the other side of it and so makes it last twice as long. There ar~ ways of getting along with small means quite as enjoy- ably as with big ones if you only exercise your ingenuity and thrift. Indeed it is a bit of adventure that appeals to a sporting mind. Poor millionaires!

A man who had been in my regiment as a soldier came to me not long ago complaining that he was on his beam ends. He said he had served his country faithfully for the best ten years of his life and this was the way a grateful country treated him, letting him down into the gutter. He had no particular trade training, but his brother in Canada was willing to take him into partnership if he went out there. But for his part he didn't think it right that he should be banished because he had served his country, nor had he the money to take him if he had wanted to go.

I asked him how much he had saved during his service. He smiled ironically and said, "You don't save much as a private soldier." But my experience was that most of my ex-men had left the Service with a very fair balance in the savings~bank, and I was bound to say-"You got your food and lodging and clothing and doctor and fuel and light and water all good and all free. It would have been possible, therefore, in your ten years to have put by a tidy sum, or even allowing yourself beer and baccy and entertainments, more than enough to fix you up in Canada, and Canada is not a place of banishment but a jolly good land of promise." But he was one of those who had not used the opportunity when he had got it. The moral of this story is, "Make hay whenever your sun shines; don't wait for it to shine later on; clouds may get worse and rainy times may set in." Or, put another way, "Don't play with the spoon before taking your medicine; putting off an easy thing makes it hard; putting off a hard one makes it impossible...."

Why save up? Well, you may some day see your opening to better things if you could afford to go overseas, or had a little capital to set yourself up in business. But what is still more certain to come is that one day you'll want to get married; you will have to think of setting up house with a wife, but there is something more than that which too many men forget. There will be the children. It is playing a low-down trick on them to bring them into the world if you have nothing then to bring them up on.

The Post Office Savings Bank is as simple a way as any. The postmaster at your post office will take your savings as you hand them in and give you a bank book showing the amount you deposit from time to time, and this money will draw interest and gradually increase of itself.

Another method is to buy National Savings Certificates at a post office or bank with saving enough to buy a few stamps each week to be attached to your savings card. These savings stamps can be bought at any money order post office.

But another and very popular way is to join with a few other people in forming a "Savings Association" under the National Savings Committee. Under this system you pool your savings each week with the other members and thus they begin to earn interest much sooner than they would do by "lone saving".

The price of every certificate thus collected goes into the Bank and begins to earn at once. Full details can be got from any post office on your asking for a Savings Association Leaflet.

As you get larger sums you can of course invest them in stocks and shares which will bring bigger returns though at greater risks. Investing in these requires a certain amount of knowledge of the game, and you should get expert advice. But in the National Savings and Post Office banks your money is absolutely certain and you get a very satisfactory return for it in interest.

I wrote a recommendation once for a man for a good business appointment and I gave a short list of his qualffications. When I came to look over them alter I had written them down it struck me that if the people who had asked about it had given me a list of the points they wanted in him it would have beenjust about the same as the list I gave them. You may take it that these qualities are what most employers would like to find in a man. The point for you is, have you got them yourself? If not, hie-in and get them and you'll be safe for a good job in any line that you may find best suits you. This is what I said of him -

"He is very capable and energetic, reliable in every way and resourceful; a tactful leader of men-and hai a hefty laugh. This last is alone worth his salary, since it comes at the time when things are looking most difficult and infects everybody around him."

Well, that is a good enough character to take you anywhere. "Capable" means skilled and efficient at his work. "Energetic" means active and keen in the enjoyment of it. "Reliable" means sober, punctual, truthful and to be trusted with money and confidential work, and is not likely to do anything foolish or wrong; that he is loyal to his employer as well as to those under him, and will carry on his work whether under observation or not "Resourceful" means that he will find a way of carrying on whatever the difficulties may be. "A tactful leader of men" means that he is courteous and human, that he leads and does not drive. And the fact that he laughs and takes things cheerily and makes others do the same is a very valuable point in his favour.

One day, in the times when I was just a careless young fellow, my colonel suddenly called me in and told me he was going to make me adjutant of the regiment.

Adjutant! I was appalled.

The adjutant was the man on whom the whole of the well-being and well-doing of the regiment to a great extent depended. A glorious work-but what if one failed?

I couldn't face it.

But the colonel simply said he trusted me to do it. Well, in a few minutes I was a changed being. I was now a man with a big responsibility thrust upon him instead of being a devil-may-care feckless boy with no special aims beyond enjoying himself.

I found myself with a new and serious outlook, with great visions of what I might bring about for the good of the men and for the name of the regiment I plunged into my work with heart and soul; and I never looked back. That interview with the colonel, short as it was, was the real starting-point of my career.

And from that lesson in responsibility I was able to go on to higher steps of one bigger responsibility after another.

If you are to do any good towards making a career for yourself you must be able to take responsibility.

To be able to take responsibility needs confidence in yourself and knowledge of your job and practice in excercising responsibility.

In the Royal Navy this fact is fully recognised and they begin it when young. Even the most junior officer is given responsible management of a boat with its crew and he gets the whole of the blame or praise according to its doings.

So too in the Boy Scouts. The Patrol Leader is the one authority answerable for the efficiency and behaviour of his six Scouts; and so it is among the Rover Scouts (see final Chapter) with the Mate.

Once you are accustomed, from early practice, to take responsibility, it makes a man of you. It strengthens your character and it fits you for the higher steps in your profession.

Then, too, it strengthens your influence for good with others.

The late Marshal Foch, one of the greatest of the French generals, once said:

"When you have a task to perform consider it carefully.

1. See that you understand exactly what is wanted of you or what it is you want to effect.
2. Then make your plans for bringing it off.
3. Have some good reason for the plans.
4. Make their execution fit in with the material you have.
5. Above all, have the will, the stubborn will, the determination to carry them through to a successful finish".

I know that the Marshal was right. In my own small way I have always had a weakness for planning things, even unimportant things, before taking them on.

From this I got the name among the Zulus of "Imhlala panzi", literally "the man who lies down to shoot". That means one who takes care about first getting his aim as correct as possible before loosing off his shot. It is the sure way to success. Take "Imhlala-panzi" as your motto.

You will sometimes have to take risks if you want to ~ succeed; take them, don't shirk them-but take them with your eyes open.

Talking of that, I was once out with another man reconnoitring the enemy's position in Matabeleland.

We had, during the night, managed to get through his outpost lines, and were in rear of his position at daybreak.

While we were sneaking about studying it, whom should we meet but a jolly great lion. The opportunity was too tempting. We both nipped off our horses, and regardless of giving ourselves away to the enemy we both fired and between us knocked him over.

But he was up again in a moment, in a shocking bad temper, using awful language, with his hind-quarters partly paralysed by the shot. He couldn't gallop away, but he turned round and round, snarling and looking in every direction for us.

We didn't want to do more shooting than we could help for fear of bringing the enemy down on us, and also for fear of spoiling his skin as a specimen; so I went down into the dry water-course in which he was in order to get nearer and give him his quietus, while my friend stayed on the bank with his rifle ready aimed at the lion in case he tried to turn tables and give me mine.

As the lion saw me approaching he turned on me with his mouth open, lips drawn back, and eyes nearly shut with rage. I fired down his throat and killed him.

Then it was that, having taken our risk Of being discovered, we kept our eyes open. We took it in turns to skin the beast (and if you have no gloves it is wonderful how soon a hunting knife can raw your hands when in a hurry with a great tough loose hide to deal with). While one man skinned, the other kept a sharp look-out in every direction with the acute feeling that they looking for us all the time.

Lucky we did so! As we got the skin off, the enemy discovered us, and we just had time to bundle it up and mount our horscs before they got within reach of us.

A scheme was once made out of what a young man should go in for when educating himself for his career in life. The main points that he should aim at were put in diagram form (see page 51).

I was asked to criticise this: so I added another diagram as Part II to it.

With regard to Part I (page 51) the qualities shown in italics all go to form what is known as Character; and it is Character, as much as efficiency or skill, that will help you to success in your career. But I would specially draw attention to energy on the one hand and patience on other.

Energy comes partly of good bodily health, but mainly of genuine interest in your work. Some fellows never seem to get interested in their work because it seems to be very limited and running perpetually in the same groove. It would be better if they looked around and saw where it fitted in the complete work of the whole; and if they looked ahead and saw the ultimate value it was going to have when it comes into use beyond the walls of the workshop or office. The best workers, like the happiest livers, look upon their work as a kind of game: the harder they play the more enjoyable it becomes. H. G. Wells once said: "I have noticed that so-called great men are really boys at heart, that is they are boys in the eagerness of their enjoyment of their task. They work because they like to work, and thus their work is really play to them. The boy is not only father to the man, but he is the man and does not disappear at all.' Which is just another way of saying: "Play is LOVING to do things, and work is HAVING to do things."

There is a good deal in indispensability. I was asked once why I admired my Indian servant so particularly. The reason was quite simple: it was because he put master first and self second-if self ever came into it at all, which I doubt. Absolutely loyal and to be trusted, always there, ready for any job, silent and hard-working. He was a treasure. But in that country such a character was not exceptional, whatever it might be elsewhere.

Without knowing it, he was indispensable; and I can tell you this, that if you make yourself indispensable to your employer he is not going to part with you in a hurry no matter what it costs him.

Another point that is missed in the foregoing list is that of being quick in your work. It may to some extent come in under energy, but it is improved all the more by practice.

If you are quick in all that you do in your play and in your personal actions so that it becomes your habit, you will be equally quick in your work, and there it will count in your favour.

As a matter of practice carry it out in your daily dressing. Don't dawdle; have everything in its place and ready to your hand; time yourself at it, and go on and beat your own record.

Other points that should have special attention and receive too little notice in the list are pluck and cheeriness. And there is another asset that you should have for making your career, that is Hope. Don't think that because you start low down that it is therefore impossible for you to get up. Hundreds of the big men to-day started at the very bottom of the ladder. But, as I have said before, you've got to do your own climbing. Don't stay in the mud because the others stick there; look for your stepping stones and make your way out of it. Get your foot on to the lowest rung and up you go.

I have seen so many men start well in life with all the equipment necessary for making them successful, who then went and failed owing to their lack of patience; when things went against them at the moment they chucked up everything and tried something else; and if once you get into the habit of chucking up and trying again it becomes a habit and remains a habit, so that your whole life becomes a series of chucking-ups and never getting up.

As regards Part II of the diagram, the question of How to Live, that is how to enjoy life with true happiness and not merely pleasure, is of equal importance with the problem of making a living; and the two parts into which I have divided it are almost of equal importance with each other, viz. having High Ideals and Serving others. But I think that serving others is the more important of the two because it largely includes the High Ideal and is the main step to Happiness.

That is why I shall go into it more fully in another chapter.

HORSE SENSE

A pound in hand is worth two on a horse.

If you are a square peg make for a square hole-and don't be content till you get there.

A coat, like a question, has two sides to it. Both should be exploited before you have done with it.

So live that when you die everybody will be sorry - even the undertaker (Mark Twain).

Let us all be happy and live within our incomes, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with (Anemus Ward).

Most Vice is due to suppressed perspiration (Dr. W. J. Dawson).

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
(Tennyson).

KEEP SMILING

When you feels a mighty mis'ry an' yer stomach's kinder bent,
And de doctor starts to projec' with the cutting instru-ment;
When he lays you on de table, an' a-standin' by yo' side,
He's a-twitchin' an' a-itchin' ter be whittlin' up yo' hide-
DEN remember 'bout the 'possum who was sittin' on de limb,
Wid de gun a-p'inting at him, an' de dorgs a-treein' him;
How he holler to de hunter an' he holler to de houn'
"I'se gwine ter keep a-grinnin',-doh I spec' you'll fetch me down."
("Ole Marster", by B. B. Valentine).