Ramrod-stiff he stood, ticking off the seconds until at the exact count he must execute the heavy stomp and with smack of rifle butt, stride off, paralleling the paling that fenced in the palace courtyard. As he paced he continued to enjoy his secret sensation of exaltation; his role in the pageantry of colorful military tradition.

He knew the stories of men in Guards Regiments who had keeled over under the cruel assault of sun stroke. Men who, in the act of falling, had toppled like lead soldiers; no relaxing of body, no turning of head or body. He remembered Private Plimpton of his own company, set upon by a mongrel. Fangs had ripped through trousers and flesh. Only when the beast had been beaten off and he was officially relieved had Pvt. Plimpton succumbed to the weakness of mutilated flesh and sunk to the pavement. Even then it had been involuntary. The cruelly torn leg would not support that first willing step he had taken with a guardsman's stride.

The end of the measured distance was reached. Again the double stomp and lightning turn and now Pvt. Hibben was pacing back to the sentry box. He recalled his own ticklish moments when the required stern impassivity had

been threatened by the temptation to laugh. Times when tourists would assume strange angles on the pavement at his feet in order to get "interesting shots" with their bloody cameras. He thought too on a day when some nasty little brute—all of five or six-had strayed from his nanny long enough to clutch at Hibben's knees and tug away 'til his nanny had come rushing up to haul him off, bellowing in frustration. The ever present sightseers gathered before the palace had added to his outraged dignity by laughing uproariously. They came, these sightseers, to watch the changing of the guard, to see the palace and always, to stare at the unbending rigid figures of the guardsmen. The stiffas-starch, eyes-front bearing commanded their admiration but it also incited sadistic little pranks. A guardsman was a challenge to many and to these there would be some infantile victory in cracking that martial composure. Thus the succession of little tarts from the East

End who would parade before him singing out in cockney accents-"Coo! Ayn't 'e the looker!" "Wha' dontcher smile, duckey?"

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