coupled with a recommendation to procure a new pair of boots without delay.  If M’Splae is a novice in regimental diplomacy, he will thereupon address himself to his platoon sergeant, who will consign him, eloquently, to a destination where only boots with asbestos soles will be of any use.  If he is an old hand, he will simply cut his next parade, and will thus, rather ingeniously, obtain access to his company commander, being brought up before him at orderly-room next morning as a defaulter.  To his captain he explains, with simple dignity, that he absented himself from parade because he found himself unable to “rise up” from his bed.  He then endeavours, by hurriedly unlacing his boots, to produce his feet as evidence; but is frustrated, and awarded three extra fatigues for not formally reporting himself sick to the orderly sergeant.  The real point of issue, namely, the unsuitability of M’Splae’s boots, again escapes attention.

There the matter rests until, a few days later, M’Splae falls out on a long regimental route-march, and hobbles home, chaperoned by a not ungrateful lance-corporal, in a state of semi-collapse.  This time the M.O. reports to the captain that Private M’Splae will be unfit for further duty until he is provided with a proper pair of boots.  Are there no boots in the quartermaster’s store?

The captain explains that there are plenty of boots, but that under the rules of the present round game no one has any power to issue them. (This rule was put in to prevent the game from becoming too easy, like the spot-barred rule in billiards.) It is a fact well known to Olympus that no regimental officer can be trusted with boots.  Not even the colonel can gain access to the regimental boot store.  For all Olympus can tell, he might draw a pair of boots and wear them himself, or dress his children up in them, or bribe the brigadier with them, instead of issuing them to Private M’Splae.  No, Olympus thinks it wiser not to put temptation in the way of underpaid officers.  So the boots remain locked up, and the taxpayer is protected.

But to be just, there is always a solution to an Olympian enigma, if you have the patience to go on looking for it.  In this case the proper proceeding is for all concerned, including the prostrate M’Splae, to wait patiently for a Board to sit.  No date is assigned for this event, but it is bound to occur sooner or later, like a railway accident or an eclipse of the moon.  So one day, out of a cloudless sky, a Board materialises, and sits on M’Splae’s boots.  If M’Splae’s company commander happens to be president of the Board the boots are condemned, and the portals of the quarter-master’s store swing open for a brief moment to emit a new pair.

When M’Splae comes out of hospital, the boots, provided no one has appropriated them during the term, of his indisposition, are his.  He puts them on, to find that they pinch him in the same place as the old pair.