Then there is New Scotland Yard.  It would be a scandal for the members of the Selborne Society not to visit that home of amity and see all the New Scots at work in tracking down the breakers of the laws that are made in the picturesque building with the clock tower so close by.  And not very distant is the War Office, where mobilisation-while-you-wait may be studied at first hand, we don’t think.  Indeed, London offers such opportunities that we shall be surprised if the Selborne Society ever looks at a mole or a starling again.

* * * * *

THE ROAD TO THE RHINE.

BUSINESS LEAVE.

Of course we know demobilisation is proceeding apace.  We know that pivotal men are simply pirouetting to England in countless droves.  We know it because we see it in the papers (when they come), and it is a great source of comfort to us.  But since it is six days’ train journey and four days’ lorry-hopping from where we sit guarding the wrong side of the river to the necessary seaport, perhaps they have forgotten us, or they are keeping all the pivots in this area for one final orgy of demobilisation at some future date, which for the moment I am not at liberty to disclose.

At present my poor friend Cook is sitting in the Company Mess with his thoughts all of the inside of Army prisons, instead of the glowing pictures he used to have of himself exchanging his battle-bowler for the headgear of civilisation.  He says I’m responsible for his state of mind, because I first put the idea into his head.  Well, I did; but I don’t see how you can blame the fellow who filled the shell if some silly ass hits it on the nose-cap with a hammer.

It started like this.  After the Demobilisation General Post had sounded Cook spent his time writing to everybody who did not know him well enough to down his chances, filled up all the forms in triplicate and packed his valise ready to start off any time of the day or night for England, home and wholesale hardware, which is his particular pivot.  I may say here that nominally this business is run by him and his brother, and the fact that they are now both in the Army is probably the chief reason why the manager in charge is able to make the business pay.  However, you know what people are; if they draw receipts from a business nothing will persuade them but that they must be there, “on the spot you know,” to “look after it.”  So, seeing his face grow longer and longer as the days went by without the Quarter-Master coming round and handing him his ration trilby hat, civvy suit and the swagger cane he hopes for, I said, “Why don’t you put in for two months’ business leave?”