Well, to make my story short, I gave notice to interested parties on the tenth day, put on my steel-ribbed cap and my armor-plated coat, and with stick in hand walked over to a hairdresser’s with whom I had previously communicated, had my complexion darkened to a Spanish olive, put on a false beard, and was ready for service.  I had arranged with this tonsorial artist, whose shop was in the Strand near Northumberland House, that he should be prepared to remove these traces of disguise as speedily as he had put them on, and that I should leave a stylish coat and hat in his charge, to be donned in haste should occasion require.  I next engaged two boys to stand opposite Northumberland House, and be ready to hold a horse.  These boys I partially paid beforehand, and promised more liberal largess if they did their duty.  Preliminaries having been thus arranged, I strolled down Whitehall, feeling very much as I did years afterward when I found myself going into action for the first time in Dixie.

It was early afternoon on a lovely spring day.  The Strand was a roaring stream of omnibuses and drays, carriages were beginning to roll along the drives leading to Rotten Row, and all London was in the streets.  I was assured that at this hour I should find a big but father clumsy giant on post; and there he was, sure enough, sitting like a colossal statue on his coal-black charger, the crest of his helmet almost touching the keystone of the arch under which he sat, his accoutrements shining like jewels, and he looking every inch a British cavalryman.  I walked past on the opposite side of Whitehall, meeting, without being recognized, all my aiders and abettors in this most heinous attack on Her Majesty’s Guards.  I then crossed the street and took a good look at my man.  He and his companion-sentry under the other arch were aware of officers in “mufti” on the opposite sidewalk, and kept their eyes immovably to the front.  Evidently nothing much short of an earthquake could cause either to relax a muscle.  The little circle of admiring beholders which is always on hand inspecting these splendid horsemen was present, of course, with varying elements, and I had to wait a few minutes until a small number of innocuous spectators coincided with the aphelion of the periodical policeman.

It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate that tower of polished leather, brass and steel, with a man inside of it some forty pounds heavier than I, and think that in a minute or so we two should be engaged in a close grapple, whose termination involved considerable risk for me physically as well as pecuniarily.  However, there was, in addition to the feeling of apprehension, a touch of elation at the thought that I, a lone Yankee, was about to beard the British lion in his most formidable shape, almost under the walls of Buckingham Palace.