Between this and the kitchen?'
'Never, but for the moment I put it down outside the door to
change the plates.' 'And was there nobody in the passage?'
'Not a soul, except the sentry.' 'I see,' said my host, who
was a quick-witted man. 'Send the sergeant here.' The
sergeant came. The facts were related, and the order given
to parade the entire guard, sentry included, in the passage.
The sentry was interrogated first. 'No, he had not seen
nobody in the passage.' 'No one had touched the dish?'
'Nobody as ever he seed.' Then came the orders: 'Attention.
Ground arms. Take off your bear-skins.' And the truth -
I.E., the missing leg - was at once revealed; the sentry had
popped it into his shako. For long after that day, when the
guard either for the Tower or Bank marched through the
streets, the little blackguard boys used to run beside it and
cry, 'Who stole the leg o' mutton?'
CHAPTER XVI
PROBABLY the most important historical event of the year '49
was the discovery of gold in California, or rather, the great
Western Exodus in pursuit of it. A restless desire possessed
me to see something of America, especially of the Far West.
I had an hereditary love of sport, and had read and heard
wonderful tales of bison, and grisly bears, and wapitis.
