I read further.  “Lighted by gas;” and again I recalled that intelligent young fellow’s bright “Yes, gas only in the garden-room.”

What is one to do with these poets, these roseate optimists?  And how delightful to be one of them and refuse to see any but desirable residences and gas where none is!

But it was the next trope that really shook me:  “Well-stocked kitchen-garden.”  Here I ceased to be amused and became genuinely angry.  The idea of calling that wilderness, that monument of neglect, “well-stocked.”  I was furious.

That was a week ago.  Yesterday I paid a flying visit to the country to see how things were going and how many people had been to view the place; and my fury increased when, after again and for the fiftieth time pointing out to the gardener the lack of this and that vegetable, he was more than normally smiling and silent and dense and impenitent.

“You say here,” he said at last, pulling the description of the house from his pocket and pointing to the words with a thumb as massive as it is dingy and as dingy as it is massive—­“you say here ’well-stocked kitchen garden.’” You!

And now I understand better the phrases “agents for good” and “agents for evil.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  PORTRAIT OF MR. ——­, WHO HAD NO IDEA, WHEN HE FLED FROM LONDON TO ESCAPE AIR-RAIDS AND TOOK A THREE YEARS’ LEASE NEAR MAIDENHEAD, THAT THE WAR WOULD BE OVER SO SOON.]

* * * * *

From an official circular:—­

“If the man in question happens to be a seaman, he will be included on A.F.Z.8 in the figures appearing in the square of intersection between the horizontal column opposite Industrial Group 2 and the vertical column for Dispersal Area Ib.”

Yet there are people who still complain of a want of simplicity in the demobilisation regulations.

* * * * *

STAGES.

1914.

Mr. Smith (of Smith, Smith and Smith, Solicitors) sat in his office awaiting his confidential clerk.  There was a rattle as of castanets outside the door.  It was produced by the teeth of the confidential clerk, Mr. Adolphus Brown.

Mr. Smith was a martinet ...

1915.

Second-Lieutenant A. Brown was drilling his platoon.  There was a rattle as of castanets.  It was produced by the teeth of the platoon.

Adolphus was a martinet ...

1916.

The raiding, party hurled itself into the trench, headed by an officer of ferocious mien.  There was a rattle as of castanets.  It was produced by the teeth of the 180th Regiment of Landsturmers, awaiting destruction.

Adolphus fell upon them ...

1917.

Captain A. Brown, M.C., on leave, sat by his fireside.  There was a rattle as of castanets.  It was produced by the teeth of Adolphus, Junior.