A Seraph entered and dropped, panting, on a form. His plumage was ragged, his sword splintered to the hilt; and his face still worked with the passions of the world he had left, as his soiled vesture reeked of alcohol. “Defeat,” he reported hoarsely, when he had given in a woman’s name. “Utter defeat! Look!” He held up the stump of his sword. “I broke this on her gin-bottle.” “So? We try again,” said the impassive Chief Seraph. Again he beckoned, and there stepped forward that very Imp whom Death had transferred from the N.C.D. “Go _you_!” said the Seraph. “We must deal with a fool according to her folly. Have you pride enough?” There was no need to ask. The messenger’s face glowed and his nostrils quivered with it. Scarcely pausing to salute, he poised and dived, and the papers on the desks spun beneath the draught of his furious vans. St. Peter nodded high approval. “_I_ see!” he said. “He’ll work on her pride to steady her. By all means--‘if by all means,’ as my good Paul used to say. Only it ought to read ‘by any manner of possible means.’ Excellent!” “It’s difficult, though,” a soft-eyed Patience whispered. “I fail again and again. I’m only fit for an old-maid’s tea-party.” Once more the record flashed--a multiple-urgent appeal on behalf of a few thousand men, worn-out body and soul. The Patience was detailed. “Oh, me!” she sighed, with a comic little shrug of despair, and took the void softly as a summer breeze at dawning. “But how does this come under the head of Domestic Casualties? Those men were in the trenches. I heard the mud squelch,” said St. Peter. “Something wrong with the installation--as usual. Waves are always jamming here,” the Seraph replied. “So it seems,” said St. Peter as a wireless cut in with the muffled note of some one singing (sorely out of tune), to an accompaniment of desultory poppings: “Unless you can love as the Angels love With the breadth of Heaven be----” “_Twickt!_” It broke off. The record showed a name. The waiting Seraphs stiffened to attention with a click of tense quills. “As you were!” said the Chief Seraph. “He’s met her.” “Who is she?” said St. Peter. “His mother. You never get over your weakness for romance,” Death answered, and a covert smile spread through the Office. “Thank Heaven, I don’t. But I really ought to be going----” “Wait one minute. Here’s trouble coming through, I think,” Death interposed. A recorder had sparked furiously in a broken run of S.O.S.’s that allowed no time for inquiry. “Name! Name!” an impatient young Faith panted at last. “It _can’t_ be blotted out.” No name came up. Only the reiterated appeal. “False alarm!” said a hard-featured Toil, well used to mankind. “Some fool has found out that he owns a soul. ’Wants work. _I_’d cure him!...” “Hush!” said a Love in Armour, stamping his mailed foot. The office listened. “’Bad case?” Death demanded at last.