e then proceeds on simple and automatic lines. If your
application is referred back to you not more than five times, and if
you get your washers within three months of the date of application,
you are the winner. If you get something else instead--say an
aeroplane, or a hundred wash-hand basins--it is a draw. But the
chances are that you lose.

Consider. By the rules of the game, if Olympus can think of a single
detail which has not been thought of by you--for instance, if you omit
to mention that the lost washers were circular in shape and had holes
through the middle--you are _ipso facto_ disqualified, under Rule
One. Rule Two, also, is liable to trip you up. Possibly you may have
written the pack-mule's name in small block capitals, instead of
ordinary italics underlined in red ink, or put the date in Roman
figures instead of Arabic numerals. If you do this, your application
is referred back to you, and you lose a life. And even if you survive
Rules One and Two, Rule Three will probably get you in the end. Under
its provision your application must be framed in such language and
addressed in such a manner that it passes through every department and
sub-department of Olympus before it reaches the right one. The rule
has its origin in the principle which governs the passing of wine at
well-regulated British dinner-tables. That is, if you wish to offer a
glass of port to your neighbour on your right, you hand the decanter
to the neighbour on your left, so that the original object of your
hospitality receives it, probably empty, only after a complete circuit
of the table. In the present instance, the gentleman upon your right
is the President of the Washer Department, situated somewhere in the
Army Ordnance Office, the remaining guests representing the other
centres of Olympian activity. For every department your
application misses, you lose a life, three lost lives amounting to
disqualification.

When the washers are issued, however, the port-wine rule is abandoned;
and the washers are despatched to you, in defiance of all the laws of
superstition and tradition, "widdershins," or counter-clockwise.
No wonder articles thus jeopardised often fail to reach their
destination!

Your last fence comes when you receive a document from Olympus
announcing that your washers are now prepared for you, and that if you
will sign and return the enclosed receipt they will be sent off upon
their last journey. You are now in the worst