At breakfast next morning the Colonel intimated that on this his last day he would go unaccompanied.  With one eye on the Major and the other on the Adjutant, he passed a few remarks on the finesse of fishing.  The element of surprise should be the basis of attack.  Precision and absolute secrecy in the carrying out of preliminary operations was vital.  Every trick and every device of camouflage should be brought into play.  There should be no violent preliminary bombardment of ground-bait to alarm the hostile forces, but the sector should be unostentatiously registered on the preceding night.  The enemy’s first realisation of attack should be at that moment when resistance was futile—­though for his part he preferred a foe that would fight to the fish-basket, as it were.  He thought the weather was vastly improved and admitted that his hopes were high.

In the evening the Colonel positively swaggered into Mess.  He radiated good fellowship and even bandied witticisms with the junior subaltern in an admirable spirit of give-and-take.  He had enjoyed excellent sport.  Later, in the ante-room, he delivered a useful little homily on the surmounting of obstacles, on patience, on presence of mind and on nerve, copiously illustrated from a day’s triumph that will resound on the Murman coast as the unconditional surrender of the intimidated roach.  He described how he had cunningly outmanoeuvred the patrols, defeated the vigilance of the pickets, pierced the line of resistance, launched a surprise attack on the main body, and spread panic in the hearts of the hostile legions.

Unhappily for us, common decency, he said, had forced him to present his catch to his friend.

* * * * *

    “Wanted, to kill time whilst waiting demobilisation, an old
    gun, rifle, or pistol.”—­Morning Paper.

Now we know why Time flies.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Barber (carried away by his reminiscences).  “And when he’d looped the Loop he did A Nose-dive that Fairly took your Breath away.”]

* * * * *

The twopenny bin.

It was called Greatheart; or, Samuel’s Sentimental Side; and I think you will agree that it was a lot of title for twopence.  Day after day, as I fumbled among the old books in the Twopenny Bin of the little secondhand bookseller’s shop, that volume would wriggle itself forward and worm its way into my hands; and I would clench my teeth and thrust it to the remotest depths of the box.

Then it haunted me.  All day in my room I could hear Greatheart; or, Samuel’s Sentimental Side calling out to me, “How would you like to be in the Twopenny Bin?”

I began to grow sentimental myself, and to handle those unconsidered trifles with tenderness.  For you never know; I might be in the Twopenny Bin myself someday; might be picked up, just glanced at and shifted back into the corner out of sight.