he villain dying
repentant with a full confession in his left puttee, and embraces the
girl who chanced to be Red-Crossing in the rear of the German
position--presumably having arrived there by aeroplane. This seemed to
me both probable and credible in a magazine. Still a novel climax was
needed. After the few well-chosen words from the prison governor I took
the convict to the nearest public-house, let him discover that the new
restrictions were in force, and brought the story to a novel conclusion
by making him say with oaths to the recruiting officer that he would be
jiggered if ever he formed fours for such a rotten old country.

I thought that, at any rate, I had provided one surprise for my readers.
Then I turned to my psychological study, entitled "The Funk." There
wasn't much story in this, but a good deal about a man's sensations when
in danger. I could picture the horror of it from personal experience,
for my rear rank man has nearly brained me a dozen times when the
specials have bayonet drill (I also have nearly brained--but I am
wandering from the subject). Well, the Funk at the critical moment ran
away, but, being muddled by German gas clouds, ran straight into the
German lines. He thought that people were trying to intercept his
flight. In panic he cut them down. At the last moment he cut the CROWN
PRINCE'S smile in twain. (In fiction, mark you, it is quite allowable to
put the CROWN PRINCE into the firing line). Then came glory, the D.C.M.
and a portrait of some one else with the Funk's name attached in _The
Daily Snap_. However, novelty was needed. I concluded by leaving the
Funk hiding in a dug-out when the British charged and eating the
regiment's last pot of strawberry jam.

I turned to another romance, entitled "Secret Service," and found to my
joy that this needed very little alteration. The hero chanced to be in
Germany at the outset of the war. He was imprisoned at Ruhleben,
Potsdam, Dantzic, Frankfort and Wilhelmshaven. He escaped from these
places by swimming the Rhine (thrice), the Danube, the Meuse, the Elbe,
the Vistula, the Bug, the Volga, the Kiel Canal and Lake Geneva. He
chloroformed, sandbagged, choked and gagged sentinels throughout the
length and breadth of Germany. From under a railway carriage seat he
overheard a conversation between ENVER BEY and BERNHARDI. Concealed
beneath a pew at a Lutheran church he heard COUNT ZEP. and VON TIRP.
exchanging deadly secrets. Finally he emerged