Lollie was a hardened veteran campaigner, twenty-two years of age, and full two years’ trench-age—which means a lot more—and he started to return from his latest leave with a pleasing consciousness of his own knowledge of the ropes, and a comforting belief that he would be able to make his return journey in comparative ease. Certainly, the start from Victoria Station at seven o’clock on a drizzling wet morning, which had necessitated his being up at 5.30 a.m., had not been pleasant, but even the oldest soldier has to put up with these things, and be assured that no “old soldiering” can dodge them. It annoyed him a good deal to find when they reached Folkestone that the boat would not start until well on in the afternoon, and that he had been dragged out of bed at cock-crow for no other purpose than to loaf disconsolately half a day round a dead-and-alive pleasure resort. He was irritated again when he went to have lunch in a certain hotel, to have the price of his meal demanded from him before he was allowed into the dining-room. “It’s not only buying a pig in a poke,” as he told his chance table companion, “but it’s the beastly insinuation that we’re not to be trusted to pay for our lunch after we’ve had it that I don’t like.” He also didn’t like, and said so very forcibly, the discovery that there is a rule in force which prohibits any officer proceeding overseas from having any intoxicating liquor with his meal, although any other not for overseas that day could have what he liked. “If that’s not inviting a fellow to lie and say he is staying this side I dunno what is,” said Lollie disgustedly. “But why should I be induced to tell lies for the sake of a pint of bitter. And if I’m trusted not to lie, why can’t I be trusted not to drink too much. However, it’s one more of their mysterious ways this side, I s’pose.” He evaporated a good deal of his remaining good temper over the lunch. “Not much wonder they want their cash first,” he said; “I haven’t had enough to feed a hungry sparrow.”