y the Practical Joke Department, which appears to
exercise a sort of general right of interference all over Olympus. For
instance, the Fairy Godmother Department decrees that officers from
Indian regiments, who were home on leave when the War broke out and
were commandeered for service with the Expeditionary Force, shall
continue to draw pay on the Indian scale, which is considerably higher
than that which prevails at home. So far, so good. But the Practical
Joke Department hears of this, and scents an opportunity, in the form
of "deductions." It promptly bleeds the beneficiaire of certain sums
per day, for quarters, horse allowance, forage, and the like. It is
credibly reported that one of these warriors, on emerging from a
week's purgatory in a Belgian trench, found that his accommodation
therein had been charged against him, under the head of "lodgings," at
the rate of two shillings and threepence a night!

But sometimes the Fairy Godmother Department gets a free hand. Like
a benevolent maiden aunt, she unexpectedly drops a twenty-pound note
into your account at Cox's Bank, murmuring something vague about
"additional outfit allowance"; and as Mr. Cox makes a point of backing
her up in her little secret, you receive a delightful surprise next
time you open your pass-book.

She has the family instinct for detail, too, this Fairy Godmother.
Perhaps the electric light in your bedroom fails, and for three days
you have to sit in the dark or purchase candles. An invisible but
observant little cherub notes this fact; and long afterwards a postal
order for tenpence flutters down upon you from Olympus, marked "light
allowance." Once Bobby Little received a mysterious postal order for
one-and-fivepence. It was in the early days of his novitiate, before
he had ceased to question the workings of Providence. So he made
inquiries, and after prolonged investigation discovered the source of
the windfall. On field service an officer is entitled to a certain
sum per day as "field allowance." In barracks, however, possessing a
bedroom and other indoor comforts, he receives no such gratuity. Now
Bobby had once been compelled to share his room for a few nights
with a newly-joined and homeless subaltern. He was thus temporarily
rendered the owner of only half a bedroom. Or, to put it another way,
only half of him was able to sleep in barracks. Obviously, then, the
other half was on field service, and Bobby was therefore entitled to
half