room." And the excited crowd fell back to let them
pass.

As Dennis brought up the rear with his prisoner he met Bob coming in,
and young Wetherby told him what had happened.

"By Jove! it's a thousand pities we missed that woman," said the
captain. "We haven't seen the end of that vixen and her husband."

What happened in the manager's room it is not for us to reveal, but the
placards of the evening papers had the startling announcement:

"DRAMATIC CAPTURE OF A GERMAN SPY AT
A WELL-KNOWN WEST-END RESTAURANT!

ESCAPE OF HIS FEMALE ACCOMPLICE!
BRITISH OFFICER'S WINE DRUGGED!"

In the _Gazette_ a few days later was an announcement among the
promotions: "2/12th Royal Reedshire Regiment, Captain Robert Oswald
Dashwood to command the battalion with the rank of major. Second
Lieutenant Dennis Dashwood to lieutenant."

Probably none of the lunchers knew what that meant; it was not their
affair.

* * * * *

Up the muddy road swung a brown detachment to the music of mouth organs,
and Harry Hawke, who was lounging at the door of a big barn, chewing a
woodbine and looking fed up with life generally, lifted his snub nose in
the air as the head of the detachment came round a bend in the road.

In an instant the sulky, discontented look vanished from his face, and
he let off a yell.

"Turn out, you beggars!" he yelped. "Tiddler, look at this! 'Ere's our
bloomin' draft at larst. Give 'em a cheer, boys! Now we shan't be long!"

From the barn and the adjacent cottages the Reedshires poured and lined
up at the roadside.

"Never mind the weather,
Now then, all together:
Hallo! Hallo! Here we are again!"

sang the draft, to the accompaniment of the mouth organs, the battalion
joining in with a lusty roar of welcome.

"Lumme, Tiddler! They're a bloomin' fine lot!" was Harry Hawke's
approving comment. "And if there ain't our little 'ero with two blinkin'
stars on 'is blinkin' sleeve! Are we down'earted?"

And eleven hundred and fifty throats gave a thunderous "NO!" as the
draft halted.

Within twenty-four hours of the arrival of the draft the battalion fell
in with packs and rifles. The little pillar-box at the end of the barn,
with the time of the next collection scored in chalk on the wall, had
been filled to overflowing with field post cards for home, and the
Reedshires left their billets to join the brigade again.

It was all new to young Wetherby, and Dennis seemed