ow
ends. Nor was this renunciation any great hardship, for I had been writing
a book about the Realities of War, and had just found that all the horrors
that ever might have happened had already been set down by one who saw most
of the game, being an onlooker. "But this," I said, as I set out every
morning--"this is the life, pure adventure in every moment of it."

My efforts were rewarded. In late February three people came and left three
coin-boxes--in pieces. Then I must admit that I did a foolish thing. I
wrote and said that I only wanted one box. I was afraid that if I kept them
all it would be, a case of "Thr-r-ree pennies, please," instead of one.
(Mine is a penny district).

It annoyed them all. They came and took all the boxes away again--jealousy,
I suppose. So at the end of February I was back in my old trenches again
and visitors were still saying, "Oh, _do_ you mind if I ring up So-and-so?"
and I was listening to myself answering, "Oh, _do_. No, of _course_ don't
bother about the twopence" (visitors always want calls just outside the
radius; I do myself).

The crisis came in March. It was then that I joined the criminal classes.
For many days I had haunted the telephone dump, taking a melancholy
pleasure in watching real engineers come out with real coin-boxes for other
people. No Peri at the golden gate ever looked more wistful. I know now
that it is opportunity that makes the criminal, and one day the opportunity
came. It came in the form of a young and evidently new hand, who emerged
from the dump and pitched upon me--me of all people--to ask, "Can you tell
me where this place is?" As he spoke he began to get out a slip with the
address, and in that moment my fate was sealed. One glance showed me that
he was the bearer of a perfectly good coin-box, and in a second I had
seized the opportunity.

What he said I have not the slightest idea and it wouldn't have mattered
what the address had been; before he started I had assured him that by a
curious coincidence I was going to that very place, and that by a still
more curious coincidence I was the very man who wanted that coin-box.
Curious, wasn't it, how such coincidences happened in real life as well as
in books?

I took him to my home in a taxi. On the way I succeeded in diverting his
mind from any possible awkward questions by relating details of my sad
story until I could see the poor fellow was on the verge of tears. For
those interested in crimino