I can never repair that, for if I went back to the
Royal Armory I should not know him by sight, and if I sought among the
guides saying I was the stranger who had behaved in that shabby sort,
how would that identify me among so many other shabby strangers? He had
the intelligence to leave me and the constant companion of these travels
to ourselves as we went about that treasury of wonders, but before we
got to the armory he stayed us with a delicate gesture outside the court
of the palace till a troop for the guard-mounting had gone in. Then he
led us across the fine, beautiful quadrangle to the door of the museum,
and waited for us there till we came out. By this time the space was
brilliant with the confronted bodies of troops, those about to be
relieved of guard duty, and those come to relieve them, and our guide
got us excellent places where we could see everything and yet be out of
the wind which was beginning to blow cuttingly through the gates and
colonnades. There were all arms of the service--horse, foot, and
artillery; and the ceremony, with its pantomime and parley, was much
more impressive than the changing of the colors which I had once seen at
Buckingham Palace.
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