anything is preferable
to idleness and the shelf, I shall have to start life again among
strangers before I'm forty, with two or three captain fellows swearing
vengeance at me for being promoted over their heads! It's not exactly a
glowing vista, and the prospect of that forty makes a man think. When
he sits alone on a sweltering Indian night, and compares his lot with
that of fellows like Middleton, for instance, it is depressing work!

"In one or other department of life a man must have success, if he is to
know content. Work counts for a lot, but it must be successful work to
make up a whole. A big career appeals to all men--the sense of power,
the consciousness that one particular bit of the world's work depends
upon him, and would suffer from his absence, but that sort of success
hasn't come my way. It's the jolliest regiment in the world, the best
set of fellows, but it's been our luck to be `out of things,' and we are
hopelessly blocked.

"Then there's the home department! Middleton (I use him as a type) can
never ask himself `what is the good,' while he has his wife and that
stunning little lad. He has his depressed moods like the rest, but when
they come on, Dorothea makes love to him, and the little chap sits on
his knee. At such times any nice feeling young photograph ought to
sympathise with a lonely fellow who sits by and--looks on!

"What do you suppose made up my last Christmas mail? A bill from the
stores, and a picture postcard from an old nurse. This year there'll be
a letter from you! I have theories about Christmas letters--especially
Christmas letters to fellows abroad. Christmas is a time of special
kindliness and love; people who are as a rule most reserved and
dignified let themselves go, and show what is in their hearts. I've a
fancy just for once to `pittend' as the children say, and write a real
Christmassy letter. A fellow in the regiment--Vincent--is just engaged.
He met her when he went to S--for his last leave. Prom his
descriptions you would imagine she was another Helen of Troy, but I'm
told she's quite an ordinary nice girl. The airs he gives himself! A
fellow might never have been engaged before. After listening to him
steadily for two hours on end the other night, I ventured one on my own
account.

"`I wonder,' I said tentatively, `if any girl will ever care enough to
be willing to be engaged to me?'

"He ruminated, and sucked his pipe: `Well,' he said slowly,