ath our shallow roof--"I wonder if there would have
been any war if the Germans smoked Jamavana?"

"What's worrying you, Den?" I asked, ignoring his question.

"Worrying me? Why, nothing. I've got nothing to worry about. What
about you, though? I don't want to butt in on your private affairs,
but you've a lot more to be worried about than I have."

"I? Oh, nonsense, Dennis," I protested.

"None of that with me, Ron. You know what I mean. There's no point in
either of us concealing things. This war is going to make a big
difference to you and Myra McLeod. Now, tell me all about it. What do
you mean to do, and everything?"

"There isn't much to tell you. You know all about it. We're not
engaged. Old General McLeod objects to our engagement on account of my
position. Of course, he's quite right. He's very nice about it, and
he's always kindness itself to me. You know, of course, that he and my
father were brother officers? Myra and I have been chums since she was
four. We love each other, and she would be content to wait, but, in
the meantime--well, you know my position. I can only describe it in
the well-worn phrases, 'briefless barrister' and 'impecunious junior.'
There's a great deal of truth in the weak old joke, Dennis, about the
many that are called and the few that are briefed. Of course the
General is right. He says that I ought to leave Myra absolutely alone,
and neither write to her nor see her, and give her a chance to meet
someone else, and all that--someone who could keep her among her own
set. But I tried that once for three months; I didn't answer her
letters, or write to her, and I worried myself to death very nearly
about it. But at the end of the three months she came up to town to
see what it was all about. Gad, how glad I was to see her!"

"I bet you were," said Dennis, sympathetically. "But what d'you mean
by telling me you'd got nothing to worry about? Now that you're just
getting things going nicely, and look like doing really well, along
comes this wretched war, and you join the army, and such practice as
you have goes to the devil. It's rotten luck, Ronnie, rotten luck."

"It is a bit," I admitted with a sigh. My little bit of hard-earned
success had meant a lot to me.

"Still," said Dennis, "you've got a thundering lot to be thankful for
too. To begin with, she'll wait for you, and then, if necessary, marry
on twopence-halfpenny a year, and make you comfortable on it too. As
far as her fa