with great gratification, that Peter thought me rather
a personage.

The Captain and I discussed the merits of the new Lewis machine-gun,
while Peter went off to give the mechanics his opinion on biplanes and
monoplanes.

"That kid knows a thing or two," I heard one of them say to the other in
an undertone. "Jolly little chap." Peter has an undoubted gift for
Mathematics, both Pure and Applied, and his form master has prophesied a
Mathematical Scholarship at Cambridge. Peter, however, has other views.
He has determined to join the Army at the earliest opportunity. He is
now ten years of age, and the only thing that ever worries him is the
prospect of the war not lasting another seven years. When I told him
that the A.A.G. up at G.H.Q. had, in a saturnine moment, answered my
question as to when the war would end with a gloomy "Never," he was
mightily pleased. That was a bit of all right, he remarked.

Peter, it should be explained, belongs to one of those Indian dynasties
which go on, from one generation to another, contributing men to the
public service--the I.C.S., the Army, the Forest Service, the Indian
Police. Wherever there's a bit of a scrap, whether it's Dacoits or
Pathans, wherever there's a catastrophe which wants tidying up, whether
it's plague, or famine, or earthquake, there you will find one of
Peter's family in the midst of it. One of his uncles, who is a Major in
the R.F.A., saved a battery at X---- Y----. Another is the chief of the
most mysterious of our public services--a man who speaks little and
listens a great deal, who never commits anything to writing, and who
changes his address about once every three months. For if you have a
price on your head you have to be careful to cover up your tracks. He
neither drinks nor smokes, and he will never marry, for his work demands
an almost sacerdotal abnegation. Peter knows very little about this
uncle, except that, as he remarked to me, "Uncle Dick's got eyes like
gimlets." But Peter has seen those eyes unveiled, whereas in public
Uncle Dick, whom I happen to know as well as one can ever hope to know
such a bird of passage, always wears rather a sleepy and slightly bored
expression. Uncle Dick, although Peter does not know it, is the
counsellor of Secretaries of State, and one of the trusted advisers of
the G.H.Q. Staff. Of all the staff officers I have met I liked him most,
although I knew him least. Some day, if and when I have the honour to
know him be