pboard and there's this week's _Critic_ on that
table. It's got a good article on Conrad, if you care for such things.'

I helped myself to a cigar and spent a profitable half-hour reading
about the vices of the British Government. Then my host returned and
bade me ascend to his bedroom. 'You're Private Henry Tomkins of the
12th Gloucesters, and you'll find your clothes ready for you. I'll send
on your present togs if you give me an address.'

I did as I was bid, and presently emerged in the uniform of a British
private, complete down to the shapeless boots and the dropsical
puttees. Then my friend took me in hand and finished the
transformation. He started on my hair with scissors and arranged a lock
which, when well oiled, curled over my forehead. My hands were hard and
rough and only needed some grubbiness and hacking about the nails to
pass muster. With my cap on the side of my head, a pack on my back, a
service rifle in my hands, and my pockets bursting with penny picture
papers, I was the very model of the British soldier returning from
leave. I had also a packet of Woodbine cigarettes and a hunch of
bread-and-cheese for the journey. And I had a railway warrant made out
in my name for London.

Then my friend gave me supper--bread and cold meat and a bottle of
Bass, which I wolfed savagely, for I had had nothing since breakfast.
He was a curious fellow, as discreet as a tombstone, very ready to
speak about general subjects, but never once coming near the intimate
business which had linked him and me and Heaven knew how many others by
means of a little purple-and-white cross in a watch-case. I remember we
talked about the topics that used to be popular at Biggleswick--the big
political things that begin with capital letters. He took Amos's view
of the soundness of the British working-man, but he said something
which made me think. He was convinced that there was a tremendous lot
of German spy work about, and that most of the practitioners were
innocent. 'The ordinary Briton doesn't run to treason, but he's not
very bright. A clever man in that kind of game can make better use of a
fool than a rogue.'

As he saw me off he gave me a piece of advice. 'Get out of these
clothes as soon as you reach London. Private Tomkins will frank you out
of Bradfield, but it mightn't be a healthy alias in the metropolis.'

At eleven-thirty I was safe in the train, talking the jargon of the
returning soldier with half a dozen of m