-shows which, to
oblige Their Exigencies, we have to label Queer Trades, and leave at that.

Whether his department is or is not making history it is certainly one
which calls for a vast amount of special knowledge in its _personnel_.
Ross, having been at the Bar, knows nothing and knows that he knows
nothing, but is able to pretend to know just enough to keep his end up with
Thos. J. Brown, who, disguised as a corporal, really runs the business.
"Our Mr. Brown," as Ross calls him, is one of those nice old gentlemen who
wear large spectacles and cultivate specialist knowledge on the intensive
system. Owing to his infallibility in all details and upon all occasions he
was much sought after in peace time by the larger commercial houses. When
War broke out our Mr. Brown disdained peace. He made at once for the Front;
but his aged legs, though encased in quite the most remarkable puttees in
France, were found to be less reliable than his head, and he was held up on
his way to the trenches and diverted to the stool of Ross's office.

He began by putting some searching and dreadfully intelligent questions to
Ross; dissatisfied with Ross's answers, he concentrated his mind on the
business for twenty-four consecutive hours, at the end of which period he
was the master of it in more senses than one. Since that time Ross has
ensured the efficient running of his office by keeping out of it when it is
busy. When for appearance sake he has to be there he does as his Mr. Brown
tells him, and never wastes the latter's time by arguing.

In the Army, all fleas have bigger fleas upon their backs to bite 'em. Were
this not so somebody would have to act upon his own responsibility, and
that, as you will admit, would make war an impossibility. Accordingly in
every department there is a series of authorities, starting with "other
ranks" at the bottom, proceeding in an ascending scale of dignity and
worth, and disappearing through a cloud of Generals into an infinite of
which no man knoweth the nature. Thus, with Ross's business (to take the
tail end of it) the letter which the Corporal writes the Lieutenant signs
on behalf of the Major. It is when the Major wants to do something more
active that trouble arises. Let us take an incidental matter of
administrative detail for example, setting it forth, as all military
matters should be set forth, in paragraphs, separately numbered:--

1. Lt. Ross possessed a bicycle, motor, one. No. 54321 L/Cpl