simistic and saturnine Sapper.

"Extraordinary," he murmured. "I congratulate you, Sir John. The plan
you have outlined is exactly in every detail the one which the
Commander-in-Chief discussed with me when overlooking the charming little
village of Gueudecourt. 'Johnson,' he said, 'that is what we will do,'
and he turned to the Chief of Staff and ordered him to make a note of
it." The Sapper paused for a moment to relight his pipe. Then he turned
impressively to Sir John. "There was no Chief of Staff. The Chief of
Staff had gone: only a few bubbles welling out of the mud remained to
show his fate. And then, before my very eyes, the C.-in-C. himself
commenced to sink. To my fevered brain it seemed to be over in a minute.
His last words as he went down for the third time were 'Johnson, carry
on.' . . . Of course it was kept out of the papers, but if it hadn't
been for a Tank going by to get some whisky for the officers' mess,
which, owing to its pressure on neighbouring ground squeezed them all out
again one by one--you know, just like you squeeze orange pips from your
fingers--the affair might have been serious."

"I did hear a rumour about it," said the still small voice of a
machine-gunner from behind a paper.

"Of course," continued the Sapper, "the plan had to be given up. The
whole of G.H.Q. sat for days in my dug-out with their feet in hot water
and mustard. . . . A most homely spectacle--especially towards the end
when, to while away the time, they started sneezing in unison. . . ."

A silence settled on the smoking-room, a silence broken at last by the
opening and shutting of the door. Sir John had retired for the
night. . . .

At the moment that Vane paused at the entrance to his bit of fairyland
Sir John was in full blast.

"What, sir, is the good of educating these people? Stuffing their heads
with a lot of useless nonsense. And then talking about land
nationalisation. The two don't go together, sir. If you educate a man
he's not going to go and sit down on a bare field and look for
worms. . . ." He paused in his peroration as he caught sight of Vane.

"Ah! ha!" he cried. "Surely a new arrival. Welcome, sir, to my little
home."

Restraining with a great effort his inclination to kick him, Vane shook
the proffered hand; and for about ten minutes he suffered a torrent of
grandiloquence in silence. At the conclusion of the little man's first
remark Vane had a fleeting vision of t