es at such a
moment. Some of them were serious things, and some quite frivolous--like
Julie. But he could hardly do otherwise than consent. He asked when he
should have to go.

"In a few days. You'll have plenty of time to get ready. I should advise
you to write for some books, and begin to read up a little, for I expect
you are a bit rusty, like the rest of us. And I shall hope to have you
back lecturing in this Army area before long."

So to speak, bowed out, Peter made his way home. In the Rue de Paris
Julie passed him, sitting with a couple of other nurses in an ambulance
motor-lorry, and she waved her hand to him. The incident served to
depress him still more, and he was a bit petulant as he entered the mess.
He flung his cap on the table, and threw himself into a chair.

"Well," said Pennell, who was there, "on the peg all right?"

"Don't be a fool!" said Peter sarcastically. "I'm wanted on the Staff.
Haig can't manage without me. I've got to leave this perishing suburb and
skip up to H.Q., and don't you forget it, old dear. I shall probably be a
Major-General before you get your third pip. Got that?"

Pennell took his pipe from his mouth. "What's in the wind now?" he
demanded.

"Well, you might not have noticed it, but I'm a political and economic
expert, and Haig's fed up that you boys don't tumble to the wisdom of the
centuries as you ought. Consequently I've got to instruct you. I'm going
to waltz around in a motor-car, probably with tabs up, and lecture. And
there aren't to be any questions asked, for that's subversive of
discipline."

"Good Lord, man, do talk sense! What in the world do you mean?"

"I mean jolly well what I say, if you want to know, or something precious
like it. The blinking Army's got dry-rot and revolutionary fever, and we
may all be murdered in our little beds unless I put a shoulder to the
wheel. That's a bit mixed, but it'll stand. I shall be churning out this
thing by the yard in a little."

"Any extra pay?" demanded Pennell anxiously. "I can lecture on
engineering, and would do for an extra sixpence. Whisky's going up, and
I haven't paid my last mess bill."

"You haven't, old son," said Arnold, coming in, "and you've jolly well
got to. Here's a letter for you, Graham."

Peter glanced at the envelope and tore it open. Pennell knocked his pipe
out with feigned dejection. "The fellow makes me sick, padre," he said.
"He gets billets-doux every hour of the blessed day."

Pe