On one occasion General Simpson felt
obliged actually to expostulate. 'I think, my Lord,' he wrote,
'that some telegraphic messages reach us that cannot be sent
under due authority, and are perhaps unknown to you, although
under the protection of your Lordship's name.
For instance, I was called up last night, a dragoon having come
express with a telegraphic message in these words, "Lord Panmure
to General Simpson--Captain Jarvis has been bitten by a
centipede. How is he now?"' General Simpson might have put up
with this, though to be sure it did seem 'rather too trifling an
affair to call for a dragoon to ride a couple of miles in the
dark that he may knock up the Commander of the Army out of the
very small allowance of sleep permitted; but what was really more
than he could bear was to find 'upon sending in the morning
another mounted dragoon to inquire after Captain Jarvis, four
miles off, that he never has been bitten at all, but has had a
boil, from which he is fast recovering'. But Lord Panmure had
troubles of his own. His favourite nephew, Captain Dowbiggin, was
at the front, and to one of his telegrams to the Commander-in-
Chief the Minister had taken occasion to append the following
carefully qualified sentence--'I recommend Dowbiggin to your
notice, should you have a vacancy, and if he is fit'.
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