G. Then why do you touch it?
CAPT. G. To make it lighter. See here, little love, I've one notion
and Jack has another, but we are both agreed that all this equipment
is about thirty pounds too heavy. The thing is how to cut it down
without weakening any part of it, and, at the same time, allowing the
trooper to carry everything he wants for his own comfort--socks and
shirts and things of that kind.
MRS. G. Why doesn't he pack them in a little trunk?
CAPT. G. (_Kissing her._) Oh, you darling! Pack them in a little trunk,
indeed! Hussars don't carry trunks, and it's a most important thing
to make the horse do all the carrying.
MRS. G. But why need _you_ bother about it? You're not a trooper.
CAPT. G. No; but I command a few score of him; and equipment is nearly
everything in these days.
MRS. G. More than _me?_
CAPT. G. Stupid! Of course not; but it's a matter that I'm tremendously
interested in, because if I or Jack, or I and Jack, work out some sort
of lighter saddlery and all that, it's possible that we may get it
adopted.
MRS. G. How?
CAPT. G. Sanctioned at Home, where they will make a sealed pattern--a
pattern that all the saddlers must copy--and so it will be used by all
the regiments.
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