“When we’ve wound up the watch on the Rhine, Everything will be Potsdamn fine.” At the end of the performance the orchestra played “God Save the King.” Winterbourne stood rigidly to attention with the other soldiers in the audience. * * * * * Eleven o’clock. He thought he would go and sleep at his Club. The place was dimly lighted and empty, except for three or four elderly men, who were earnestly discussing what ought to have been done in the hand of Bridge they had just played. There were notices everywhere urging Members to be economical with light. The servants were women except the Head Waiter, a pale little spectacled man of forty-five, who informed Winterbourne that no Club bedrooms were available. They had all been commandeered for War purposes. Winterbourne found it odd to be addressed as “Sir” again. “I’ve got me papers too, Sir,” said the Waiter, “expect to be called up any day, Sir.” “What category are you?” “B1, Sir.” “Oh, you’ll be all right. Keep telling ’em you’re a skilled Club Steward and you’ll get an Officers’ Mess job.” “Do you really think so, Sir? My wife worries about me something dreadful, Sir. She says she’s sure I’ll catch my death of cold in the trenches. I’ve a very weak chest, Sir, if you’ll pardon me mentionin’ it, Sir.” “I’m sure they won’t send you out.” The little Waiter died of double pneumonia in a Base Hospital early in 1918. The Club Committee made a grant of ten pounds to his widow, and agreed that his name should appear on the Club War Memorial. Winterbourne felt sleepless. He was so much accustomed to being alert and awake at night and sleeping by day, that he found a difficulty in breaking the habit. He spent the night aimlessly wandering about the streets and sitting on Embankment benches. He noticed that there were very few occupants of the benches—the War found work for every one. Odd, he reflected, that in War-time the country could spend five million pounds sterling a day in trying to kill Germans, and that in peace-time it couldn’t afford five million a year to attack its own destitution. Policemen spoke to him twice, quite decently, under the impression that he was a leave-man without a bed. He tried to explain. One of them was very fatherly: “You take my advice, my boy, and go to the Y.M.C.A. They’ll give yer a bed cheap. I’ve got a boy your age in the trenches meself. Now, say you was my boy. I wouldn’t ’ave ’im goin’ with none of these London street women. ’E’s a good boy, ’e is. An’ they’ve treated ’im cruel, they ’ave. ’E’s been in France nearly two year, and never ’ad any leave.” “No leave in nearly two years! How extraordinary!” “No, not even after ’e was in Orspital.” “What was he in Hospital with?” “’E wrote us it was pneumonia, but we believe ’e was wounded and didn’t want to fret us, because he wrote afterwards it was pleurisy.” “Do you happen to know the number of his Base Hospital?” “Yes, Number XP.”