Honourable Jimmy had
his own methods. . . .

The desire for the game was there in the pupil: that he knew: the point
was whether the character which would suppress and master that desire
when necessary was there too. Could reliability be added to keenness?
. . .

That was what the Adjutant wished to find out. He knew that our friend
was--in the vernacular--throwing a chest. He knew that lately, well,
Reginald Simpkins had been rather full of--Reginald Simpkins.
Adjutants--good Adjutants--do know these things. Which was all to the
good--within certain limits. . . .

An unpromising subject had learned the first lesson of the soldier:
would he be able to learn the second, without which the third and
greatest would be impossible? All soldiers must learn the first
lesson; only a limited number can learn the second and third.

So it came about that for the good of his soul Reginald played a very
minor part in this raid, and my information on the doings that occurred
in the Hun lines was obtained from the lips of one Samuel Pipston,
sometime auctioneer's assistant, who had joined the battalion with the
last draft. He was just a second Reginald--one stage behind him in
development, that's all--an apathetic lad, finding war a tedious
operation.

It was not until ten o'clock on the night, as he lay with his party
behind the bank of which I have spoken, that a pleasurable thrill of
anticipation began to take hold of Samuel. A slight frost nip was in
the air, and in the sky there shone a myriad stars. Away behind him
lay the trenches he had just quitted, peaceful and still in the faint
moonlight; and looking to his front he could see the German lines, just
as still, only much closer. He tried to realise that he was shortly
going to be inside those trenches, and that when he got there he would
meet real live men, who would endeavour to kill--him, Samuel Pipston.
He thought of Mary Johnston, the daughter of the leading grocer, and
wondered what she was doing at the moment, and what she would think
if----

"Don't shoot--for God's sake--not a sound."

With a start Samuel heard the hoarse whisper of a subaltern beside him,
and became suddenly aware that a struggle was going on two or three
yards away. He peered eagerly in the direction of the noise, and saw
three men in a confused mass heaving on the ground behind the bank.

"What the devil----" he muttered, and then the heaving ceased. In the
dim light he saw a