e to impart--and of a sudden he looked ten years older. "I
couldn't sleep a wink last night at Ostend," he muttered in a
bewildered sort of way, "and I don't feel as if I'd ever sleep again."

We did not wear uniform in the War Office for the first month or so,
and one night about this time, on meeting a disreputable and
suspicious-looking character on the stairs, garbed in the vesture
affected by the foreign mechanic, I was debating whether to demand of
the interloper what he was doing within the sacred precincts, when he
abruptly accosted me with: "I say, d'you happen to know where in this
infernal rabbit-warren a blighter called the Something of Military
Operations hangs out?" His address indicated him to be a refugee
officer looking for my department.

These prodigals had such interesting experiences to recount that, in a
weak moment, I gave instructions for them to be brought direct to me,
and about 10 P.M. one night, when there happened to be a lot of
unfinished stuff to be disposed of before repairing homewards, a
tarnished-looking but otherwise smart and well-set-up private soldier
was let loose on me. A colloquy somewhat as follows ensued:

"What regiment?"

"The Rile Irish, sorr." (He said this as if there was no other
regiment--they always do.)

"Ah! Well, and how have you got along back here?"

"Sorr, it's the truth I'm tellin' ye, sorra ilse. Sure wasn't I
marchin' and fightin' and hidin' and craalin' for wakes and wakes"
(the Royal Irish could only have detrained at Le Cateau about ten days
before) "before I gits to that place as they calls Boulong--a gran'
place, sorr, wid quays and thruck like it was the North Waal--an' a
fellah takes me to the Commandant, sorr, where I seen a major-man wid
red tabs an' an eye like Polly-famous. 'Sorr,' sez I to him, sez I;
sez I, 'it's gittin' back to the rigimint I'd be afther,' sez I.
'Ye'll not,' sez he, 'divil a stir,' sez he; 'ye'll go to Lunnon,' sez
he. 'Will I?' sez I. 'Ye will,' sez he; 'take him down to the boat at
wanst, sergeant,' sez he, and the sergeant right turns me and marches
me out. 'Sergeant dear,' sez I, 'sure why can't I be gittin' back to
the rigimint?' sez I. 'Agh, t'hell out o' that,' sez he; 'sure didn't
ye hear what the major bin and said?' sez he, an' he gin me over to a
carpral--one on thim ogly Jocks, sorr--an' down we goes by the quays
to the boat--a gran' boat, sorr, wid ladies an' childer an' Frinch an'
Bilgians, an' all sorts, as