Frank tried for a chaplaincy.

’It isn’t a bit that he wants excitement, or change of air, or a free trip to France, or to feel grand, like some of them do,’ explained Mrs. Frank.  ’Only, what’s the good of keeping a man like him slaving away in a rotten parish like ours, when they want good men out there?  I tell Frank all he’s got to do to get round the C.G. is to grow a moustache and learn up the correct answers to a few questions—­like “What would you do if you had to attend a dying soldier?” Answer—­“Offer to write home for him.”  A lot of parsons don’t know that, and go telling the C.G. they’d give him communion, or hear his confession or something, and that knocks them out first round.  Frank knows better.  There are no flies on old Frank.  All the same, pater, you might do a little private wire-pulling for him, if it comes in handy.’

But, unfortunately, owing to a recent though quite temporary coldness between the Chaplain-General and the Potter press, Mr. Potter’s wire-pulling was ineffectual.  The Chaplain-General did not entertain Frank’s offer favourably, and regretted that his appointment as chaplain to His Majesty’s forces was at present impracticable.  So Frank went on in Pimlico, and was cynical and bitter about those clergymen who succeeded in passing the C.G.’s tests.

‘Why don’t you join up as a combatant?’ Johnny asked him, seeing his discontent.  ‘Some parsons do.’

‘The bishops have forbidden it,’ said Frank.

‘Oh, well, I suppose so.  Does it matter particularly?’

’My dear Johnny, there is discipline in the Church as well as in the army, you know.  You might as well ask would it matter if you were to disobey your superior officers.’

’Well, you see, I’d have something happen to me if I did.  Parsons don’t.  You’d only be reprimanded, I suppose, and get into a berth all right when you came back—­if you did come back.’

’That’s got nothing to do with it.  The Church would never hold together if her officers were to break the rules whenever they felt like it.  That friend of yours, Juke, hasn’t a leg to stand on; he’s merely in revolt.’

’Oh, old Juke always is, of course.  Against every kind of authority, but particularly against bishops.  He’s always got his knife into them, and I dare say he’s glad of the chance of flouting them.  High Church parsons are, aren’t they?  I expect if you were a bit higher you’d flout them too.  And if you were a bit lower, the C.G.’d take you as a padre.  You’re just the wrong height, old thing, that’s what’s the matter.’

Thus Johnny, now a stocky lieutenant on leave from France, diagnosed his brother’s case.  Wrongly, because High Church parsons weren’t actually enlisting any more than any other kind; they did not, mostly, believe it to be their business; quite sincerely and honestly they thought it would be wrong for them, though right for laymen, to undertake combatant service.