Chapter XII 



The Rev. E. A. Aldridge — Takes Medical Degree — Becomes a Chinese Mandarin 

 — In the Pytchley Country — Poaching — Beware of the Butler — Please " Shut 

 up " — Known as a " Plodder " — With Sir Robert Hart — Obligations of the 

 Mandarin — Five Years on Hainan — A Thousand Miles up the Yangtze River 

 — The Foreign Devil — A Narrow Escape — House Burnt to the Ground — 

 Reverence for the Missionary — A Simla General's Views on Missionaries — 

 Working in Leeds Slums — Good-bye to Sport — Running Saves Him — A 

 Species of Freedom Again — Shadows of the Oxford Movement — Dress Eti- 

 quette at Cambridge University — Tommy Atkins of Yesterday, and To-day — 

 A Few Axioms — A Wooden Leg — The Rising Generation — Some Sporting 

 Generals — A Callow Jest — The Jester Dwindles — First Volunteer in Hanning- 

 ton — At Loos — Wounded — With the Scottish Division. 



THE REV. E. A. ALDRIDGE has undoubtedly had an 

 exciting career. 

 Having taken good medical degrees before becoming 

 a parson, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1914, and 

 has served as a doctor with the forces in France, being still there 

 at the time this is being written. Medicine is only one of his 

 accomplishments ; among other things he is a Mandarin of 

 China, member of the Alpine Club, Fellow of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, and an all-round sportsman. As for adven- 

 tures, he has had his fair share, and it is a profound mystery why 

 he was not killed by any of the various mobs of Chinamen which 

 pursued him from time to time for the express purpose of taking 

 his life. 



He was brought up in the country and tutored, with a score 

 of other boys of his own age, at Welton vicarage in the Pytchley 

 country, with those excellent fox-coverts, Barlby and Badby 

 woods close at hand, so that the inspiring sight of hounds and 

 the galloping field was often afforded them. The vicar rarely 

 refused a holiday when hounds met near, so that Aldridge and 

 his companions not infrequently had a day on foot, although the 

 Pytchley is not an ideal country for those hunting on foot. 



In addition to these opportunities for hunting, there was a 



