"You've no idea what a comfort a good wash is when you're thoroughly tired out and caked with filthy mud from head to foot," Captain Jarvice went on. Yes, I had an idea. I was thinking how tenderly I would bathe the tired feet of Little Yeogh Wough if I were near him now after his long marches; those feet that I had kissed so often when they were the feet of a small child. And again I feel so glad that he had such a happy childhood. My own people used to say that it was a waste to buy the children the extravagantly costly toys they had. But I'm glad now--very glad. "He'll be adjutant presently, you'll see," said Captain Jarvice, keeping on his own line. I laid my hand very softly against his wounded shoulder. "Captain Jarvice, can't you see that in spite of all its horror this war has done some good? It has made men and women of us all. You don't hear people complaining of pin-pricks now, as they used to do. And it has given us all hearts, instead of only a gizzard in the heart's place." A week or two later Little Yeogh Wough himself came home on that first leave to which his father and his sister and his naval cadet brother and I had been looking forward with such panting eagerness. "Why, you look like a German, Roland!" was the frank greeting of that younger brother, standing up in the hall to welcome him with all the self-confidence of one who wore the dark blue of the premier Service. "I do, do I? That's because I've got my hair cropped, I suppose. And I expect you think a lot of yourself because you've got into the Navy. But anyhow, here I am, and I'm not a German, whatever I may look like." With his arm round me and mine round him, he moved across the hall, giving his gay little greetings that had a catch in the throat behind them. There was an answering catch in his father's throat, and a little tremble in all our voices. Then we noticed at last how deadly tired out he looked. He laughed when we told him of it. "I've been on my feet for forty-eight hours--and in any case I never manage to get more than four hours' sleep a night, even in billets. But a good sleep here to-night will soon put me right. I think I'll have a hot bath now and go to bed directly after dinner. You'll come and see me in bed, mother?" We had dinner early, for his sake, and it was hardly more than half-past nine when he called me and told me he was ready for me to come in. He was not in bed yet, however, but only sitting down, half undressed, in the midst of all the disturbed treasures of his room. The doors and drawers of his wardrobe stood open, as did also the drawers under his toilet glass, and one or two trunks which he had pulled out from beneath the bed. "It's very good to be back again and see all the dear old things." He nodded at the general confusion. "You don't know how _I_ think of them when I'm out there." "But you don't hate being out there?"