these simple questions.  He knew he couldn’t succeed and had no intention of giving himself away by an attempt.  Advancing towards the Interpreter’s table and putting his right hand to his ear, “Pardon, monsieur,” he said, “mais je suis un peu sourd, depuis mon accident.”

    “Quel accident?” said the Interpreter; after which my friend did
    not stop talking until he was passed out with a “French,
    garrulous.”

We met quite recently and talked over things in general, telling each other, in confidence and on the best authority, all those exciting details of the progress of the War which men go on saying and believing until they are officially contradicted.  Getting down to realities, he told me that he has now the greatest difficulty in believing in the War at all, though he is within ear-shot of it all the time.  His difficulty is due to the last thing he saw before he left his office:  three men standing at his gate, in that attitude of contented and contemplative leisure which one associates with Saturday afternoons and village pumps, looking at nothing in particular and spitting thoughtfully as occasion required.  One of them was a British soldier, one a French soldier and one a German soldier.  The whole picture suggested anything but war; if there was a war on, which nation was fighting against which?  My friend, however, is somewhat oddly situated in this respect, since he commands for the moment a detachment of German prisoners in our back area.  Some of them, he tells me, are extraordinarily smart.  One Prussian N.C.O. in particular was remarkable.  Dressed in his impressive overcoat, hatted for all the world like our Staff and carrying under his arm his dapper cane, this N.C.O. went round from group to group of working prisoners, accompanying the English sergeant in charge of the party and interpreting the latter’s orders to the men.  So striking was his get-up that all paused to look at him.

Thinking it might please you, my friend showed me an official memo., which he had just received from one of his officers in command of an outlying detachment, and of course of the odds and ends of British personnel adhering thereto:  cooks, guards, etc.  The memo. ran as follows, and it repays careful study and thinking out; I give you the whole of it:—­

        “To the Commanding Officer, Orderly Room, Hqrs.”

The undermentioned is in my opinion entirely unfitted for the duty to which he has been detailed with this detachment.  He shows no signs of either intelligence or industry, and I propose, with your approval, to take the necessary steps to get rid of him forthwith.

        A. B. SMITH,

        Capt. i.c.  ‘B’ Detachment.

    My friend was much concerned to hit upon exactly the right form
    of reply.  Eventually we agreed:—­

        “To Capt.  A. B. Smith, i.c.  ‘B’ Detachment.