ore latitude both in games and work might be allowed; originality
encouraged more. But let us be very certain before we gaily pull the
system to pieces that the one we erect in its place will stand the
strain, and produce the one great result beside which everything else
is as nothing. For if, at the price of team work and playing for the
side, we can only buy two or three more years of individualism--at an
age when the value of individualism is, at best, a doubtful blessing
and, at worst, sheer blatant selfishness--we shall indeed have messed
things up. The cranks will be delighted; but the Empire will gnash its
teeth.

And now after nearly four years in the fiercest forcing house of
character Derek Vane found himself trying to take an inventory of his
own stock. And since the material question of money did not come in to
cloud the horizon, he felt he could do it impartially. There are many
now who, having sacrificed every prospect, find their outlook haunted
by the spectre of want; there are many more, formerly engaged in
skilled trades such as engineering or mining, who find that they have
four years of leeway to make up in their profession--four years of
increased knowledge and mechanical improvements--unknown to them, but
not to their competitors, who remained behind. But such prospects did
not trouble him. The future, as far as money was concerned, was
assured.

Vane thoughtfully lit a cigarette. It seemed to him that he had wasted
four of the best years of his life, sitting, save for brief intervals,
on the same filthy piece of ground, with the sole object of killing
complete strangers before they killed him. In this laudable pastime he
had succeeded to the extent of two for certain and one doubtful. The
only man whom he had really wanted to slaughter--a certain brother
subaltern who offended him daily--he had been forced to spare owing to
foolish regulations. . . . And now this youth was at home as a
Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel in sole control of an ante-chamber in one
of the large hotels, with a staff of four flappers, who presented
papers for his signature every other Tuesday from 2.30 to 4.

With a short laugh he got up and shook himself. In the distance some
sand dunes beckoned invitingly--sand dunes which reminded him of the
width of Westward Ho! and a certain championship meeting there long
ago. Slowly he strolled towards them, going down nearer the sea where
the sand was finer. And all