NOTE.--The last paragraph was written before the recent changes at G.H.Q. and at the War Office, but the reader will not need any assistance in the identification of the two distinguished Chiefs of Staff here referred to.--J.H.M. FOOTNOTES: [28] The writer's experience of the trenches is described in some detail in Chapter VIII. [29] _The Manual of Military Law_. XXX HOME AGAIN Sykes had finished packing my kit and had succeeded with some difficulty in re-establishing the truth of the axiom that a whole is greater than its parts. When I contemplated my valise and its original constituents, it seemed to me that the parts would prove greater than the whole, and I had in despair abandoned the problem to Sykes. He succeeded, as he always did. One of the first things that an officer's servant learns is that, as regards the regulation Field Service allowance of luggage, nothing succeeds like excess. Sykes had not only stowed away my original impedimenta but had also managed to find room for various articles of _vertu_ which had enriched my private collection, to wit: (1) One Bavarian bayonet of Solingen steel. (2) Two German time-fuses with fetishistic-looking brass heads. (3) A clip of German cartridges with the bullets villainously reversed. (4) A copper loving-cup--_i.e._, an empty shell-case presented to me with a florid speech by Major S---- on behalf of the ----th Battery of the R.F.A. (5) An autograph copy of _The Green Curve_ bestowed on me by my friend "Ole Luk-Oie" (to whom long life and princely royalties). (6) The sodden Field Note-book of a dead Hun given me by Major C---- of the Intelligence, with a graceful note expressing the hope that, as a man of letters, I would accept this gift of _belles-lettres_. (7) A duplicate of a certain priceless "chit" about the uses of Ammonal[30] (original very scarce, and believed to be in the muniment-room of the C.-in-C., who is said to contemplate putting it up to auction at Sotheby's for the benefit of the Red Cross Fund). (8) An autograph copy of a learned Essay on English political philosophers presented to me by the author, one of the _liaison_ officers, who in the prehistoric times of peace was a University professor at Avignon. (9) A cigarette-case (Army pattern), of the finest Britannia metal, bestowed on me with much ceremony by a Field Ambulance at Bethune, and prized beyond rubies and fine gold. (10) A pair of socks knitted by Jeanne.[31] To these Madame[32] had added her visiting-card--it was nearly as big as the illuminated address presented to me by the electors of a Scottish constituency which I once wooed and never won--wherewith she reminded me that my billet at No. 131 rue Robert le Frisson would always be waiting for me, the night-light burning as for a prodigal son, and steam up in the hot-water bottle.