As Death himself observed to St. Peter who had just come off The Gate for a rest: “One does the best one can with the means at one’s disposal but----” “_I_ know,” said the good Saint sympathetically. “Even with what help I can muster, I’m on The Gate twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four.” “Do you find your volunteer staff any real use?” Death went on. “Isn’t it easier to do the work oneself than----” “One must guard against that point of view,” St. Peter returned, “but I know what you mean. Office officialises the best of us.... What is it _now_?” He turned to a prim-lipped Seraph who had followed him with an expulsion-form for signature. St. Peter glanced it over. “Private R. M. Buckland,” he read, “on the charge of saying that there is no God. ’That all?” “He says he is prepared to prove it, sir, and--according to the Rules----” “If you will make yourself acquainted with the Rules, you’ll find they lay down that ‘the fool says in his heart, there is no God.’ That decides it; probably shell-shock. Have you tested his reflexes?” “No, sir. He kept _on_ saying that there----” “Pass him in at once! Tell off some one to argue with him and give him the best of the argument till St. Luke’s free. Anything else?” “A hospital-nurse’s record, sir. She has been nursing for two years.” “A long while,” St. Peter spoke severely. “She may very well have grown careless.” “It’s her civilian record, sir. I judged best to refer it to you.” The Seraph handed him a vivid scarlet docket. “The next time,” said St. Peter folding it down and writing on one corner, “that you get one of these--er--tinted forms, mark it Q.M.A. and pass bearer at once. Don’t worry over trifles.” The Seraph flashed off and returned to the clamorous Gate. “Which Department is Q.M.A.?” said Death. St. Peter chuckled. “It’s not a department. It’s a Ruling. ‘_Quia multum amavit._’ A most useful Ruling. I’ve stretched it to.... Now, I wonder what that child actually did die of.” “I’ll ask,” said Death, and moved to a public telephone near by. “Give me War Check and Audit: English side: non-combatant,” he began. “Latest returns.... Surely you’ve got them posted up to date by now!... Yes! Hospital Nurse in France.... No! _Not_ ‘nature and aliases.’ I said--what--was--nature--of--illness?... Thanks.” He turned to St. Peter. “Quite normal,” he said. “Heart-failure after neglected pleurisy following overwork.” “Good!” St. Peter rubbed his hands. “That brings her under the higher allowance--G.L.H. scale--‘Greater love hath no man--’ But _my_ people ought to have known that from the first.” “Who is that clerk of yours?” asked Death. “He seems rather a stickler for the proprieties.” “The usual type nowadays,” St. Peter returned. “A young Power in charge of some half-baked Universe. Never having dealt with life yet, he’s somewhat nebulous.”