sed the question in the polite language of the
precincts of Durdlebury Cathedral, I might have been at a loss to
reply. But the manly invocation of hell shows me that your foot is
already on the upward path. If you had prefaced it by the adjective
that gives colour to all the aspirations of the British Army, it would
have been better. But I'm not reproaching you, laddie. _Poco a poco._
It is enough. It shows me you are not going to run away to a neutral
country and present the unedifying spectacle of a mangy little British
lion at the mercy of a menagerie of healthy hyenas and such-like
inferior though truculent beasties."

"My God!" cried Doggie, "haven't I thought of it till I'm half mad? It
would be just as you say--unendurable." He began to pace the room
again. "And I can't go to France. It would be just the same as
England. Every one would be looking white feathers at me. The only
thing I can do is to go out of the world. I'm not fit for it. Oh, I
don't mean suicide. I've not enough pluck. That's off. But I could go
and bury myself in the wilderness somewhere where no one would ever
find me."

"Laddie," said McPhail, "I misdoubt that you're going to settle down
in any wilderness. You haven't the faculty of adaptability of which I
have spoken to-night at some length. And your heart is young and not
coated with the holy varnish of callousness, which is a secret
preparation known only to those who have served a long apprenticeship
in a severe school of egotism."

"That's all very well," cried Doggie, "but what the----"

Phineas waved an interrupting hand. "You've got to go back, laddie.
You've got to whip all the moral courage in you and go back to
Durdlebury. The Dean, with his influence, and the letter you have
shown me from your Colonel, can easily get you some honourable
employment in either Service not so exacting as the one which you have
recently found yourself unable to perform."

Doggie threw a newly-lighted cigarette into the fire and turned
passionately on McPhail.

"I won't. You're talking drivelling rot. I can't. I'd sooner die than
go back there with my tail between my legs. I'd sooner enlist as a
private soldier."

"Enlist?" said Phineas, and he drew himself up straight and gaunt.
"Well, why not?"

"Enlist?" echoed Doggie in a dull tone.

"Have you never contemplated such a possibility?"

"Good God, no!" said Doggie.

"I have enlisted. And I am a man of ancient lineage as honourable, so