Throughout the period that I was connected with the B.S.S. there were constant difficulties about money. Had not my personal credit been good, which enabled me to raise large amounts almost everywhere I happened to travel, I, or my colleagues, might have been stranded again and again. It was nothing unusual for appeals to be made to me to act as banker and Good Samaritan until long-deferred payments eventually arrived. In the early days most of the B.S.S. agents travelling abroad seemed to labour under the same difficulty: a shortage of funds and overdue accounts wanting payment. It may not have been any fault of, but merely an eccentricity of, our good old managing chief; be that as it may, impecuniosity never bothered me. Some of the others got very angry about it, whilst their irritation increased as their banking accounts became more heavily overdrawn. So far as actual pay went, a B.S.S. man drew the equivalent to his ordinary army or naval pay, with nothing over for rations or extras. He, however, returned a list of his travelling expenses and hotel bills which were agreed to be refunded each month. If he were a married man, he had to pay his wife's and his family's expenses out of his own pocket, should it be necessary for any of them to accompany him, which often absorbed the whole of his pay and a good bit above it. If he entertained anyone with a view to drawing out some point of useful intelligence, it would be passed in general expenses, provided the outlay was exceedingly moderate. But the members of the executive with whom I came in contact were inclined to be of the parsimonious type, much too much afraid to spend a sovereign, either because they could not really afford it, or for fear they would never see it back again. Their entertaining was conspicuous by its absence, which necessitated a rather heavier drain upon my pocket and upon my good nature. It had at times to be done, and someone had to do it; that someone was nearly always myself. The Chief preached economy at all times and he religiously practised it. It was paradoxical in that if a big amount was wanted for some exceedingly doubtful purpose no limit seemed to be made; the wherewithal was almost certain to be forthcoming to meet the demand. But the loyal Britisher who came along to help the Service and his country in her hour of need, who freely and ungrudgingly offered to sacrifice everything he possessed in order to serve, who worked for nothing or practically nothing, and who perhaps paid a good part of his own expenses, received an absurdly small remuneration and little if any thanks; most certainly he never received a line in writing from anyone in high authority to express his country's gratitude.