A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as he
captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the
audience laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.
It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished
the recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.
"That'll do," said Purvis, while the men rocked in their saddles. "I don't
see any particular odds between any of you. C Company! Does anybody here
know anything against any of these men?"
"That's a bit of the Regulations," Matthews whispered. "Just like
forbiddin' the banns in church. Really, it was all settled long ago when
the names first came up."
There was no answer.
"You'll take 'em as they stand?"
There was a grunt of assent.
"Very good. There's forty men for twenty-three billets." He turned to the
sweating horsemen. "I must put you into the Hat."
With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not follow,
an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which numbers and
blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the riders by a
private, evidently the joker of C Company.
Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished
receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the final
drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the Sacred
Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that followed,
when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh detachment of
stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another company.
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