What is it you say you wanted to do?  Congratulate me?  What on?  My splendid defence of the Hindenburg line?  Now, look here.  As one German General to another do you mean to tell me you believe in the Hindenburg line?  No, of course you don’t.  You thought I believed in it?  Was that what you said?  Come, don’t wriggle, though you are a dead man.  Yes, that was what you said.  Well, then understand henceforth that there is no Hindenburg line and there never was anything of the sort.  Why am I retreating then?  Because I must.  That’s the whole secret.  Why did you retreat after your famous oblique march during the Battle of the Marne?  Because you had to, of course.  There—­that’s enough.  I can’t waste any more time.  What?  Oh, yes, you can congratulate me on anything you like except that.  And now you had better return to the grave of your reputation and remain there (rings off).

The Telephone.  Rr-rr-rr-rr.

The Marshal.  To h-ll with the telephone!  Who is it now?  What—­an editor of a newspaper?  That’s a little bit too thick.  What is it you want?  To thank God for that masterpiece of bold cunning, the Hindenburg line?  Is that what you want?  Well, make haste, for the masterpiece doesn’t exist.  No, I’m not joking.  I can’t joke.  Enough (rings off).

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Nervous Recruit (on guard for the first time).  “HALT, FRIEND!  WHO GOES THERE?”]

* * * * *

=THE HOUSE-MASTER.=

  Four years I spent beneath his rule,
    For three of which askance I scanned him,
  And only after leaving school
    Came thoroughly to understand him;
  For he was brusque in various ways
    That jarred upon the modern mother,
  And scouted as a silly craze
    The theory of the “elder brother.”

  Renowned at Cambridge as an oar
    And quite distinguished as a wrangler,
  He felt incomparably more
    Pride in his exploits as an angler;
  He held his fishing on the Test
    Above the riches of the Speyers,
  And there he lured me, as his guest,
    Into the ranks of the “dry-flyers.”

  He made no fetish of the cane
    As owning any special virtue,
  But held the discipline of pain,
    When rightly earned, would never hurt you;
  With lapses of the normal brand
    I think he dealt most mercifully,
  But chastened with a heavy hand
    The sneak, the liar and the bully.

  We used to criticise his boots,
    His simple tastes in food and fiction,
  His everlasting homespun suits,
    His leisurely old-fashioned diction;
  And yet we had the saving nous
    To recognise no worse disaster
  Could possibly befall the House
    Than the removal of its Master.

  For though his voice was deep and gruff,
    And rumbled like a motor-lorry,
  He showed the true angelic stuff
    If any one was sick or sorry;
  So when pneumonia, doubly dread,
    Of breath had nearly quite bereft me,
  He watched three nights beside my bed
    Until the burning fever left me.