C.B., and
Colonel of the 2nd Dragoon Guards; and from 1878 until his retirement in
1884 he acted as Inspector General of military education. I have set out
those facts because I have no desire to minimise Walker's services and
abilities. But I cannot help smiling at a sentence which I found in the
account of him given in the "Dictionary of National Biography." It refers
to his duties during the Franco-German War, and runs as follows: "The
irritation of the Germans against England, and the number of roving
Englishmen, made his duty not an easy one, but he was well qualified for
it by his tact and geniality, and his action met with the full approval of
the Government."
The Government in question would have approved anything. But let that
pass. We called on the colonel at about half-past eleven in the morning,
and were shown into a large and comfortably furnished room, where
decanters and cigars were prominently displayed on a central table. In ten
minutes' time the colonel appeared, arrayed in a beautiful figured
dressing-gown with a tasselled girdle. I knew that the British officer was
fond of discarding his uniform, and I was well aware that French officers
also did so when on furlough in Paris, but it gave my young mind quite a
shock to see her Majesty's military representative with King William
arrayed in a gaudy dressing-gown in the middle of the day.
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