What he did _not_ do was to repeat the experiment of a year ago, or make any kind of reference to snakes....
A few days later, on the morning of the New-Year's-Day Review, Colonel Matthew de Warrenne once again strode up and down his verandah, arrayed in full review-order, until it should be time to ride to the regimental parade-ground.
He had coarsened perceptibly in the six years since he had lost his wife, and the lines that had grown deepest on his hard, handsome face were those between his eyebrows and beside his mouth--the mouth of an unhappy, dissipated, cynical man....
He removed his right-hand gauntlet and consulted his watch....

Quarter of an hour yet.
He continued the tramp that always reminded Damocles of the restless, angry to-and-fro pacing of the big bear in the gardens.

Both father and the bear seemed to fret against fate, to suffer under a sense of injury; both seemed dangerous, fierce, admirable.

Hearing the clink and clang and creak of his father's movement, Damocles scrambled from his cot and crept down the stairs, pink-toed, blue-eyed, curly-headed, night-gowned, to peep through the crack of the drawing-room door at his beautiful father.

He loved to see him in review uniform--so much more delightful than plain khaki--pale blue, white, and gold, in full panoply of accoutrement, jackbooted and spurred, and with the great turban that made his English face look more English still.
Yes--he would ensconce himself behind the drawing-room door and watch.
Perhaps "Fire" would be bobbery when the Colonel mounted him, would get "what-for" from whip and spur, and be put over the compound wall instead of being allowed to canter down the drive and out at the gate....
Colonel de Warrenne stepped into his office to get a cheroot.
Re-appearing in the verandah with it in his mouth he halted and thrust his hand inside his tunic for his small match-case.