He jumps from one thing to another, finding all the world so interesting and amusing, and most folk so ready to make friends with him, that he always feels sure of landing softly somewhere over the horizon.

So by the time we reached Jerusalem friend Jeremy was ripe for almost anything except the plan we had agreed on.  Having talked that over pretty steadily most of the way from Abu Kem, it seemed already about as stale and unattractive to him as some of his oldest tricks.  And Jerusalem provided plenty of distraction.  We hadn’t been in Grim’s quarters half an hour when Jeremy was up to his ears in a dispute that looked like separating us.

Grim, who wears his Arab clothes from preference and never gets into uniform if he can help it, went straight to the telephone to report briefly to headquarters.  I took Jeremy upstairs to discard my Indian disguise and hunt out clothes for Jeremy that would fit him, but found none, I being nearly as heavy as Grim and Jeremy together.  He had finished clowning in the kit I offered him, and had got back into his Arab things while I was shaving off the black whiskers with which Nature adorns my face whenever I neglect the razor for a few days, when an auto came tooting and roaring down the narrow street, and a moment later three staff officers took the stairs at a run.  So far, good; that was unofficial, good-natured, human and entirely decent.  The three of them burst through the bed room door, all grins, and took turns pumping with Jeremy’s right arm—­glad to see him—­proud to know him—­pleased to see him looking fit and well, and all that kind of thing.  Even men who had fought all through the war had forgotten some of its red tape by that time, and Jeremy not being in uniform they treated him like a fellow human being.  And he reciprocated, Australian fashion, free and easy, throwing up his long legs on my bed and yelling for somebody to bring drinks for the crowd, while they showered questions on him.

It wasn’t until Jeremy turned the tables and began to question them that the first cloud showed itself.

“Say, old top,” he demanded of a man who wore the crossed swords of a brigadier.  “Grim tells me I’m a trooper.  When can I get my discharge?”

The effect was instantaneous.  You would have thought they had touched a leper by the way they drew themselves up and changed face.

“Never thought of that.  Oh, I say—­this is a complication.  You mean...?”

“I mean this,” Jeremy answered dryly, because nobody could have helped notice their change of attitude:  “I was made prisoner by Arabs and carried off.  That’s more than three years ago.  The war’s over.  Grim tells me all Australians have been sent home and discharged.  What about me?”

“Um-m-m!  Ah!  This will have to be considered.  Let’s see; to whom did you surrender?”

“Damn you, I didn’t surrender!  I met Grim in the desert, and reported to him for duty.”