have some coffee. Yes, he'll see you, of course. He is in
his own room with two of the flying men, just for the moment. I'll let
you know when you can go in."

They passed into an apartment which had once been the dining-room of the
chateau, and in which a long table was laid. One or two staff officers
greeted Thomson, and the man who had brought him in attended to his
wants.

"The General had his breakfast an hour ago," the latter observed. "We're
pretty well forward here and we have to keep on the qui vive. We got
some shells yesterday dropped within a quarter of a mile of us. I think
we're going to try and give them a push back on the left flank. I'll go
in and see about you, Thomson."

"Good fellow! You might tell them to give my chauffeur something. The
destroyer that brought me over is waiting at Boulogne, and I want to be
in London to-night."

One of the officers from the other side of the table, smiled queerly.

"London! My God!" he muttered. "There is still a London, I suppose?
Savoy and Carlton going still? Pall Mall where it was?"

"And very much as it was," Thomson assured him. "London's wonderfully
unchanged. You been out long?"

"September the second," was the cheerful reply. "I keep on getting
promised a week but I can't bring it off."

"He's such a nut with the telephones," the man by his side explained,
helping himself to marmalade. "The General positively can't spare him."

"Oh, chuck it!" the other exclaimed in disgust. "What about you?--the
only man with an eye to a Heaven-ordained gun position, as old Wattles
declared one day. We're all living wonders, Major," he went on, turning
to Thomson, "but if I don't get a Sole Colbert and a grill at the Savoy,
and a front seat at the Alhambra, before many weeks have passed, I shall
get stale--that's what'll happen to me."

"Hope you'll have your hair cut before you go back," a man from the
other end of the table remarked. "Your own mother wouldn't know you like
that--much less your sweetheart."

The young man fingered his locks reflectively.

"Chap who was going to cut it for me got shot yesterday," he grumbled.
"Anything doing as you came over the ridge, Major?"

Thomson shook his head.

"One aeroplane and a few shells."

"That would be Johnny Oates going out in his Bleriot," some one
remarked. "He'll be back here before long with a report."

The officer who had met Thomson in the garden, re-entered the room.

"General says he'll see yo