e mumbled, 'and sparks and
smoke.' Then he crumpled slowly on the floor, fast asleep.

"The Divisional General was properly mystified.

"'If only I had a single field-gun or even some gelignite,' he
groaned; then turning to me, 'I must get the strength of this; it
may be some new frightfulness the Hun is springing. You're an old
horse-soldier, I believe? Well, jump on your gee and go scout the
thing, will you?'

"I scratched together a rag and bobtail patrol of grooms and pushed
off just before daybreak. Our people had the edge of the village
manned with every rifle they could collect. A subaltern lying ear to
earth hailed me as I passed. 'It's coming,' he called.

"A quarter of a mile further on I could hear the roaring and rumbling
myself without lying on the road.

"Light was breaking fast, but there were wisps and shreds of fog
blowing about which made observation exceedingly difficult. Still,
observation I was out to get, so, spreading my bobbery pack, I worked
closer and closer. Suddenly one of my patrol shrilled, 'There y'are,
Sir!' and I saw a monstrous shape loom for a moment through a thinning
of mist, and rock onwards into obscurity again.

"'It's an armoured car. I seed wheels under it,' gasped one groom.
'More like a blasted Dreadnought,' grunted another. 'Cheer-o, chaps,
the 'Un fleet 'as come out.' But nobody laughed or felt like laughing;
this mysterious monster, thundering westward wrapped in its barrage of
fog, was getting on our nerves."

The Horse-master paused and carefully removed the long ash from his
cigar.

"Then the mists rolled up and revealed what I at first took to be a
walking R.E. dump, but secondly discovered to be a common ordinary
domestic British steam-roller with 'LINCOLN URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL'
in dirty white lettering upon its fuel box, a mountain of duck-boards
stacked on the cab roof, railway sleepers, riveting stakes and odds
and ends of lumber tied on all over it. As I rode up an elderly head,
grimy and perspiring, was thrust between a couple of duck-boards and
nodded pleasantly to me. ''Ello,' it said, 'seen anythin' o' the
lads?'

"I was too dumbfounded to say anything excepting that the lads were in
the next village waiting for him.

"'Ah'm right glad o' that,' said he; 'been feeling a bit lonesome-like
these last two days;' adding, in case I might not appreciate the
situation, 'These yer Germans 'ave been after me, you know, Sir.'

"I replied that my only wond