The Sunny Side by A.A. Milne

horse.
    Toby, of course, knows much more about men than I do about horses, and no doubt he describes me professionally to his colleagues as a “flea-bitten fellow standing about eighteen hoofs”; but when he is not being technical I like to think that he sums me up to himself as a nice man. At any rate I am not allowed to wear spurs, and that must weigh with a horse a good deal.
    I have no real right to Toby. The SignallingOfficer’s official mount is a bicycle, but a bicycle in this weather—! And there is Toby, and somebody must ride him, and, as I point out to the other subalterns, it would only cause jealousy if one of them rode him, and—”
    â€œWhy would it create more jealousy than if you do?” asked one of them.
    â€œWell,” I said, “you’re the officer commanding platoon number—”
    â€œFifteen.”
    â€œFifteen. Now, why should the officer commanding the fifteenth platoon ride a horse when the officer commanding the nineteenth—”
    He reminded me that there were only sixteen platoons in a battalion. It’s such a long time since I had anything to do with platoons that I forget.
    â€œAll right, we’ll say the sixteenth. Why shouldn’t he have a horse? Of all the unjust—Well, you see what recriminations it would lead to. Now I don’t say I’m more valuable than a platoon-commander or more effective on a horse, but, at any rate, there aren’t sixteen of me. There’s only one Signalling Officer, and if there is a spare horse over—”
    â€œWhat about the Bombing Officer?” said O.C. Platoon 15 carelessly.
    I had quite forgotten the Bombing Officer. Of course he is a specialist too.
    â€œYes, quite so, but if you would only think a little,” I said, thinking hard all the time, “you would—well, put it this way. The range of a Mills bomb is about fifty yards; the range of a field telephone is several miles. Which of us is more likely to require a horse?”
    â€œ And the Sniping officer?” he went on dreamily.
    This annoyed me.
    â€œYou don’t shoot snipe from horseback,” I said sharply. “You’re mixing up shooting and hunting, my lad. And in any case there are reasons, special reasons, why I ride Toby—reasons of which you know nothing.”
    Here are the reasons:—1. I think I have more claim to a horse called Toby than has a contributor to “Our Feathered Friends” or whatever paper the Sniping Officer writes for.
    2. When I joined the Army, Celia was inconsolable. I begged her to keep a stiff upper lip, to which she replied that she could do it better if I promised not to keep a bristly one. I pointed out thatthe country wanted bristles; and though, between ourselves, we might regard it as a promising face spoilt for a tradition, still discipline was discipline. And so the bristles came, and remained until the happy day when the War Office, at the risk of losing the war, made them optional. Immediately they were uprooted.
    Now the Colonel has only one fault (I have been definitely promised my second star in 1927, so he won’t think I am flattering him with a purpose): he likes moustaches. His own is admirable, and I have no wish for him to remove it, but I think he should be equally broad-minded about mine.
    â€œYou aren’t really more beautiful without it,” he said. “A moustache suits you.”
    â€œMy wife doesn’t think so,” I said firmly. I had the War Office on my side, so I could afford to be firm.
    The Colonel looked at me, and then he looked out of the window, and made the following remarkable statement.
    â€œToby,” he said gently to himself, “doesn’t like clean-shaven officers.”
    This hadn’t occurred to me; I let it sink in.
    â€œOf course,” I said at last, “one must considerone’s horse. I quite see that.”
    â€œWith a bicycle,” he said, “it’s