This martial man seemed always to be panting for bloodshed, and openly hoped that England would go to war with some important nation—in fact, one of the Great Powers for choice—before he was too old to participate in the struggle. He knew as much of our military heroes as Tomlinson knew of our racehorses. He was not content with being a sergeant in the Artists’ Corps and one of their leading marksmen, but also went into the deepest science of battle and tactics and strategy. He read war by day and he dreamed of war by night, and he would have liked to see conscription come in at any moment. This fiery, but large-hearted man was very anxious for me to become a volunteer, and it was a great sorrow to me to find that he did not feel any further interest in me when I refused to do so, while thanking him heartily for the idea. He said that drilling was far better and more useful than going down to the L.A.C. to caper about half-naked, and that if I did regular drills and so on, I should in time come to the Field Days, and have all the joy of forced marches and maneuvers at Easter, and sleeping under canvas, and going on sentry duty by night and waking to the ringing sound of the trumpet at dawn. But none of these things tempted me as much as Bassett expected. In fact, I had already discovered in earlier life that the god Mars was nothing to me. Bassett said that he didn’t know what the young generation was coming to when I told him this, and he hinted, rather openly, that I was unpatriotic. But I would not allow that I was. I said: “We can’t all be volunteers, any more than we can all be proper soldiers.” And Dicky Travers, who, though also quite dead to the martial spirit, was a most patriotic man in sporting matters, called Bassett a “dog-shooter”! This, however, was merely repartee, of which Mr. Travers was a complete master. In fact, he had invented a nickname for everybody in the Department, and at his wish, having a slight turn for rhyming, I made up a long poem of thirty-eight verses, being one verse for each man in the Department. The mere poetry, which was nothing, was mine; but the rich humour and subtle irony, not to say satire, was the work of Dicky Travers. Each verse of this poem was arranged in the shape of a “Limerick,” which is a simple sort of rhyme well suited to humour combined with satire; and it showed the delicate skill of Mr. Travers and his surprising knowledge of human nature, that each person who read the poem invariably laughed very heartily at thirty-seven verses—in fact, all except the verse about himself. I noticed this peculiar fact and was rather astonished at it; but Travers was not astonished. He said: “My dear Corkey, when you are as old as I am, you will find that to see your friends scored off is one of those trials in life which you can always manage to get over. But the feeling is entirely different when anybody scores off you.”