I went to the instrument like a man in a dream. Something suddenly gone wrong with Sally's healthy first-born? Jimmy starting for France and ringing me up for farewell? Farrell--damn Farrell!--to talk business? Jephson, with word that he had achieved the urgent desire of his heart and been passed as a gunner, to join me, _quo fas et gloria ducunt_? These four only, to my knowledge, had my probable address. "Hallo?" I called. "Hallo!" came the answer sharp and prompt, in a woman's voice which I recognised at once for Constantia's. "Is that you, Roddy?" "Yes--Roddy, all right," I spoke back, mastering my voice. "Have you seen--?" Her voice trailed off. "D'you mean the announcement? Yes, two minutes ago. Is it congratulations you're ringing up in this hurry?" "Roddy, dear, don't be a beast!" the voice implored. "I'm in a horrible hole, and I think only you can help me. Is it possible for you to get leave, and come? Mamma asks me to say that there's a room here, and--and we want you!" "As it happens," returned I, "there'll be no trouble about getting leave. We're to start--report says--at the end of the week, and I must be sent up to collect a few service odds-and-ends. As for sleeping, I'll ring up Jephson, and if he's already conscripted, I can doss at the Club. All that is easy. But tell me, what is the matter?" "Oh! I can't here." Constantia's voice thrilled on the wire. "It's pretty awful. I never gave him leave--_never_!" "You're getting pretty incoherent," said I. "We'll have it out when we meet. Dinner? . . . No, I shall pick up a meal on the train. . . . Mustn't expect me before 8.30; I have to put a draft through and see them off. Odd jobs, besides. . . . These are strenuous times." "Roddy, you're an angel!" "Not a bit," said I; "and I warn you not to expect me in that capacity. You'll observe that I haven't congratulated you yet." I put this in rather savagely. "You're also rather a brute," answered the voice. "But you'll come?" "Please God," said I. "Thank God!" answered she; and I hung up the receiver. Well, in my jubilation I had forgotten to ask for leave to run up and get kit. But leave was no sooner asked for than given. From Victoria that evening I taxi'd straight to Jermyn Street, where I found Jephson, warned by telegram, elate at the prospect of soldiering. I was able, after a talk with my Colonel, to inform him that he had also a prospect of coming along as my servant, and this lifted him to the seventh heaven. Then I went out, picked up a dinner at Arthur's, and walked on to Upper Brook Street.