And that no one had done.  Many of our leading actors and singers and other entertainers were going back and forth to France all the time.  Never a week went by but they were helping to cheer up the boys at the bases.  It was a grand work they were doing, and the boys were grateful to them, and all Britain should share that gratitude.  But it was a wee bit more that I wanted to be doing, and there was the rub.

I wanted to go up to the battle lines themselves and to sing for the boys who were in the thick of the struggle with the Hun.  I wanted to give a concert in a front-line trench where the Huns could hear me, if they cared to listen.  I wanted them to learn once more the lesson we could never teach them often enough—­the lesson of the spirit of the British army, that could go into battle with a laugh on its lips.

But at first I got no encouragement at all when I told what it was in my mind to do.  My friends who had influence shook their heads.

“I’m afraid it can’t be managed, Harry,” they told me.  “It’s never been done.”

I told them what I believed myself, and what I have often thought of when things looked hard and prospects were dark.  I told them everything had to be done for the first time sometime, and I begged them not to give up the effort to win my way for me.  And so I knew that when they told me no one had done it before it wasn’t reason enough why I shouldn’t do it.  And I made up my mind that I would be the pioneer in giving concerts under fire if that should turn out to be a part of the contract.

But I could not argue.  I could only say what it was that I wanted to do, and wait the pleasure of those whose duty it was to decide.  I couldn’t tell the military authorities where they must send me.  It was for me to obey when they gave their orders, and to go wherever they thought I would do the most good.  I would not have you thinking that I was naming conditions, and saying I would go where I pleased or bide at hame!  That was not my way.  All I could do was to hope that in the end they would see matters as I did and so decide to let me have my way.  But I was ready for my orders, whatever they might be.

There was one thing I wanted, above all others, to do when I got to France, and so much I said.  I wanted to meet the Highland Brigade, and see the bonnie laddies in their kilts as the Huns saw them—­the Huns, who called them the Ladies from Hell, and hated them worse than they hated any troops in the whole British army.

Ha’ ye heard the tale of the Scotsman and the Jew?  Sandy and Ikey they were, and they were having a disputatious argument together.  Each said he could name more great men of his race who were famous in history than the other could.  And they argued, and nearly came to blows, and were no further along until they thought of making a bet.  An odd bet it was.  For each great name that Sandy named of a Scot whom history had honored he was to pull out one of Ikey’s hairs, and Ikey was to have the same privilege.