At this point _Mr. Punch_ rose from his chair and began to pace the room restlessly. "There must be more in life than this," he said to himself again and again; "this can't be all." He looked at his watch. "Yes," he murmured, "that's it. I shall just have time." Hastily donning the military overcoat of an Honorary Cornet-Major of the Bouverie Street Roughriders, he left for the Front. * * * * * Mud, and then again mud, and then very much more mud. "Halt! Who goes there?" "Friend," said _Mr. Punch_ hopefully. "It's _Mr. Punch_," said a cheerful voice. "Come in." The Cornet-Major of the B.S.R. glissaded into the trench and found himself shaking hands with a very young subaltern of the ----th ----s. [_Censored._] "Thought I recognised you," he said. "Glad to see you out here, Sir." "That's really what I came about," said _Mr. Punch_. "I want your advice." "My advice! Good Lord!... Sure you're comfortable there? Now what'll you have? Cigar or barley-sugar?" _Mr. Punch_ accepted a cigar. "We're all for barley-sugar ourselves just now," the subaltern went on. "Seems kiddish, but there it is." _Mr. Punch_ lit his cigar and proceeded to explain himself. "I say that I have come to consult you," he began. "It seems strange, you think. I am seventy-three, and you are----" "Twenty-two," said the subaltern. "Next November." "And yet Seventy-three comes here to sit at the feet of Twenty-two, and for every encouraging word that Twenty-two offers him Seventy-three will say 'Thank you!'" "Rats," said Twenty-two for a start. "Let me explain," said the Venerable One. "There come moments in the life of every man when he says suddenly to himself, 'What am I doing? Is it worth it?'--a moment when the work of which he has for years been proud seems all at once to be of no value whatever." The subaltern murmured something. "No, not necessarily indigestion. There may be other causes. Well, such a moment has just come to me ... and I wondered." He hesitated, and then added wistfully, "Perhaps you could say something to help me." "The pen," said the subaltern, coughing slightly, "is mightier than the sword." "It is," said the Sage. "I've often said so ... in Peace time." The subaltern blushed as he searched his mind for the Historic Example. "Didn't WOLFE say that he would rather have written what's-its-name than taken Quebec?" he asked hesitatingly. "Yes, he did. And for most of his life the poet would have agreed with him. But, if at the moment when he read of the taking of Quebec you had asked GRAY, I think he would have changed places with WOLFE very willingly.... And in Bouverie Street," added _Mr. Punch_, "we read of the takings of Quebecs almost every day." The subaltern was thoughtful for a moment.