He made an excellent job of the top button and then, recharging his tooth-brush (presented to him for quite another purpose by a paternal government) with polish, he prepared to tackle the second. But the instant he touched it there was a sudden roaring sound, and a strange hot wind sprang up, tossing into the air a swirling column of dust which half choked Alf and wholly blinded him. He dropped tooth-brush, polish and tunic to the ground and clapped his hands to his agonized eyes. The wind died down again as suddenly as it had come, and the swirling dust settled; and there came to Alf, still struggling to empty his streaming eyes of pieces of grit, an eerie sense that he was not alone. Some presence was beside him--something that he must clear his eyes and look at, yet dreaded to see. Suddenly a sepulchral voice spoke. "What wouldst thou have?" it said. Alf felt that he must _see_, or go mad. With his two hands he opened an inflamed eye--and with great difficulty restrained himself from uttering a loud yell of terror. He was confronted by a huge and hideous being of a type he had believed to exist only in the disordered imaginations of story-tellers. The being, seeing that he had Alf's undivided--even petrified--attention, bowed impressively. "What wouldst thou have?" he repeated in a deep, booming voice. "I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of any who have that Button in their possession; I, and the other slaves of the Button." "Gawd!" exclaimed Alf, in horror. "Strike me pink!" The strange being looked surprised, but bowed yet lower. "To be stricken pink? Verily my Lord's request is strange! Nevertheless, his wish is my command." He disappeared. Alf stared open-mouthed at the spot where the apparition had stood. Then in a sudden panic at what he took to be the effect of French beer after the enforced abstemiousness of the trenches, he rushed into the hut and rolled himself up in his blanket. He felt at once aggrieved and frightened; for he was not drunk nor even exhilarated, and yet he had got to the far more advanced stage of "seeing things." He gave no answer to any enquiries after his health nor any other sign of life until the orderly sergeant came round at _réveillé_ next morning. "Now then, 'Iggins, show a leg," said the N.C.O. Higgins had been awake for some time. He felt all right, and had already assured himself by a cautious glance round that he was no longer seeing demons. He sat up, and flung his blankets cheerfully from him. "Right-o, sergeant," he said. The sergeant's eyes bulged. All that could be seen of Higgins--his face, hands and the part of his neck and chest not covered by his shirt--was one glorious shade of salmon-pink, shining and glossy as if from the application of a coat of Mr. Aspinall's best enamel.