No staff can ever be popular with the line; and no line can ever satisfy the staff which works out its plans of attack on paper. The staff serves at a headquarters, and the line in the open under fire. The difference of the human equation is that between security and comfort, and death and hardship, which no philosophy can bridge. A staff officer who appeared at the front always looked conspicuously neat and conspicuously wise, as exotic as a man in a morning coat on a cowman's ranch. The line officer in earth-stained uniform, lean from his effort, eyes glistening with the fever of battle dangers shared with his men, as he entered a staff room to report was equally exotic in his surroundings, while he had a personal dignity whose chivalrous appeal no one could resist. Yet someone must do staff work. Some directing minds must arrange for the movement of the troops and their transport according to a system, and assure the presence of supplies and ammunition; someone must sit near the centering nerves of wire and wireless and telephone and messengers, and maneuver the units in battle. The more comfortable they were, the better they did their work, inasmuch as there was no reason for their sleeping on the ground when they could have shelter. Everyone familiar with the statics of war on the Western Front knew that you might have a good lunch at a division or corps headquarters, and two or three hours later you might be floundering in the mud, gas mask on, under bombardment. If you spent a day in the trenches, your feelings became those of the men who were there, you knew the nonsense that was written for public consumption in order to keep the public stalwart for the war, and you held visitors and staff officers who came sight-seeing in the kind of humorous contempt that those who "busted bronchos" held the tenderfoot in the days when realities in the wild west resembled the moving-picture shows of contemporary times. The officer relieved from staff duty for the front was subject to the same influence. He was not long in command of troops before he began abusing the staff for its preposterous orders, while the line officer assigned to the staff was soon talking about the incapability of the line to carry out his directions.