ll
be collected by industrious seekers of curios.

Another, whom the low cunning of the Criminal Bar enabled to avoid the
immediate test, paid the full price, with compound interest, later on.
Casual observers of the retreat, had there been any, would have become
familiar with the sight of him bringing up the rear--a very poor last.
To see him arrive, perspiring, over the brow of a hill, with his
faithful motor at his side, was to know that the Huns were at the
bottom of it. On one occasion they even beat him in the day's march,
but were too kind or too blind to seize their advantage. As usual he
was taking his obsession along with him, though, if he had but known,
he might have got it to do the work by the simple formality of turning
the petrol tap from OFF to ON. His was ever a curious life, from the
first moment of his joining the Army in tails, a bowler hat, and a
large sword wrapped in a homely newspaper. But the inward fun of it
all is not for the present, Charles; our clear old friends, the
Exigencies, forbidding.

I am reminded of it all by having just crossed with one of the
later-joined members. He came fresh from the line to a Head-quarters,
and he was walking about in a lane, working off some of his awe of his
new surroundings, when he was overtaken by a car containing a General,
who stopped and asked him what he was. So imposing was the account he
gave of himself that it was said to him, "No doubt, then, you'll know
the way to ----," a village at the back of beyond, where a division
was lying at rest. In the Army, at any rate at a Head-quarters, we all
know everything. So he said, "No doubt, Sir," hoping, if the worst
came to the worst, to give some vague directions and not to be present
when they were found wanting. But it was his bad luck to have struck
one of the more affable Generals. Could he spare the time to come
along and direct the driver?

So on to the box he got (it was a closed car) and, with the General's
eye always upon his back, he did his best as guide, a task for which
his previous career of stockbroker had ill qualified him. The first
thing to happen was that the car, proceeding down a narrow lane, got
well into the middle of a battalion on the march, which, when the car
was firmly jammed amongst the transport, ceased to be on the march,
and took a generous ten minutes' halt.... The second thing to happen
was a level crossing; which, as they approached it, changed its mind
about being