"They _are_ conscripts, your men, aren't they? They give me more trouble . . . I should have thought you would have wanted . . ." Tietjens said: "No, sir. I have not a man in my unit, as far as it's Canadian or British Columbian, that is not voluntarily enlisted. . . ." The general exploded to the effect that he was bringing the whole matter before the G.O.C.I.C.'s department. Campion could deal with it how he wished: it was beyond himself. He began to bluster away from them; stopped; directed a frigid bow to Sylvia who was not looking at him; shrugged his shoulders and stormed off. It was difficult for Sylvia to get hold again of her thoughts in the smoking-room, for the evening was entirely pervaded with military effects that seemed to her the pranks of schoolboys. Indeed, after Cowley, who had by now quite a good skinful of liquor, had said to Tietjens: "By Jove, I would not like to be you and a little bit on if old Blazes caught sight of you to-night," she said to Tietjens with real wonder: "You don't mean to say that a gaga old fool like that could have any possible influence over you . . . _You_!" Tietjens said: "Well, it's a troublesome business, all this. . . ." She said that it so appeared to be, for before he could finish his sentence an orderly was at his elbow extending, along with a pencil, a number of dilapidated papers. Tietjens looked rapidly through them, signing one after the other and saying intermittently: "It's a trying time." "We're massing troops up the line as fast as we can go." "And with an endlessly changing personnel. . . ." He gave a snort of exasperation and said to Cowley: "That horrible little Pitkins has got a job as bombing instructor. He can't march the draft. . . . Who the deuce am I to detail? Who the deuce is there? . . . You know all the little . . ." He stopped because the orderly could hear. A smart boy. Almost the only smart boy left him. Cowley barged out of his seat and said he would telephone to the mess to see who was there. . . . Tietjens said to the boy: "Sergeant-Major Morgan made out these returns of religions in the draft?" The boy answered: "No sir, I did. They're all right." He pulled a slip of paper out of his tunic pocket and said shyly: "If you would not mind signing this, sir . . . I can get a lift on an A.S.C. trolley that's going to Boulogne to-morrow at six. . . ." Tietjens said: "No, you can't have leave. I can't spare you. What's it for?" The boy said almost inaudibly that he wanted to get married. Tietjens, still signing, said: "Don't. . . . Ask your married pals what it's like!"