Note 11 — Chapter V

Whether rightly or wrongly, my father thought he was treated with exceptional severity by his Captain during the first part of the time he was in the army; and this has been exaggerated into a story of how in his letters to his mother during the latter part of his army life he was "constantly informing her" that "unless she obtained his discharge he would put a bullet through this officer." The story, I need hardly say, is quite untrue, and to any one who knew my father must seem almost too absurd to need refutation. During Mr Bradlaugh's illness in 1889 Captain Walker, then General Sir Beauchamp Walker, called twice to inquire at Circus Road. My father was very dull and depressed one day as he lay in bed, and, thinking to cheer him. I mentioned the names of persons who I knew he would like to hear had inquired; and when I read the name from the card, and said that General Walker had told the maid to "tell Mr Bradlaugh that his old Captain had called," he was delighted beyond measure, and was for the moment the boy private again, with the private's feelings for his superior officer. The visit gratified him almost as much as if it had been one from Mr Gladstone himself.