s with tins of boot polish
in scientifically graded rows.

After adoring them on the first day, putting up with them on the
second, and cursing them on the third, the old cook came up to
Aurelle with many lamentations, and dwelt at some length on the sad
state of her saucepans; but she found the interpreter dealing with
far more serious problems.

Colonel Parker, suddenly realizing that it was inconvenient for the
general to be quartered away from his Staff, had decided to transfer
the whole H.Q. to the chateau of Vauclere.

"Explain to the old lady that I want a very good room for the
general, and the billiard-room for our clerks."

"Why, it's impossible, sir; she has no good room left."

"What about her own?" said Colonel Parker.

Madame de Vauclere, heart-broken, but vanquished by the magic word
"General," which Aurelle kept on repeating sixty times a minute,
tearfully abandoned her canopied bed and her red damask chairs,
and took refuge on the second floor.

Meanwhile the drawing-room with its ancient tapestries was filled
with an army of phlegmatic clerks occupied in heaping up innumerable
cases containing the history in triplicate of the Division, its men,
horses, arms and achievements.

"Maps" set up his drawing-board on a couple of arm-chairs;
"Intelligence" concealed their secrets in an Aubusson boudoir; and
the telephone men sauntered about in the dignified, slow, bantering
fashion of the British workman. They set up their wires in the park,
and cut branches off the oaks and lime trees; they bored holes in the
old walls, and, as they wished to sleep near their work they put up
tents on the lawns.

The Staff asked for their horses; and the animals were picketed in
the garden walks, as the stables were too small. In the garden
the Engineers made a dug-out in case of a possible bombardment.
The orderlies' football developed a distinct liking for the
window-panes of the summer-house. The park assumed the aspect
first of a building site and then of a training camp, and new-comers
said, "These French gardens _are_ badly kept!"

This methodical work of destruction had been going on for about a
week when "Intelligence" got going.

"Intelligence" was represented at the Division by Captain Forbes.

Forbes, who had never yet arrested a real spy, saw potential spies
everywhere, and as he was fond of the company of the great, he always
made his suspicions a pretext for going to see General Bramble or
Colon