Even in our earliest days in B.E.F., when we were well behind the firing line, he started playing with fire. Thinking that we shared his low tastes he would gather us round him and lecture us on the black arts.--"This little fellow," he would say, fetching an infernal machine out of his pocket--"this little fellow is as safe as houses provided he has no detonator in his little head. But we will just make sure." A flutter of excitement would pass round the audience as he started unscrewing the top to make sure. "Of course," he'd continue, finding the screw a bit stiff and getting absorbed in his toy--"of course, if there _should_ happen to be a detonator inside, you have only to tickle it and almost anything may happen." While he'd be struggling with the screw, the front row of the audience would be shifting its ground to give the back rows a better view. "You can't be too careful," he'd say, passing it lightly from one hand to the other in order to search for his well-known clasp-knife, "for if you're not careful," he'd explain, tucking the bomb under his arm so as to have both hands free to open the knife--"if you're not careful," he'd say, suddenly letting go the knife in order to catch the bomb as it slid from his precarious hold--"if you're not very careful" (getting to real business with the murderous blade), "very--very--careful...." But none of us were ever near enough by that time to hear what would happen if we weren't (or even if he wasn't). And then those strange nights in the trenches, when he and I used to be on duty together! I would be waiting in our luxurious, brightly-lit gin-palace of a dug-out for him to join me at our midnight lunch. He'd come in at last, clad in his fleece lining, the only survivor of his extensive collection of overcoats, its absence of collar giving him a peculiarly clerical look. He'd sit down to his cocoa, but hardly be started on the day before yesterday's newspaper (just arrived with the rations) before the private bombardment would begin. I would spring to attention; he would go on reading. "Hush!" I'd say. (Why "Hush!" I don't know.) "What's all that for?" "Me," he'd say, turning to the personal column. And then I'd know that, seizing the opportunity of being unobserved, he'd been out for nocturnal stroll with a handful of bombs, seeking a little innocent pleasure. The gentlemen opposite, not being cricketers themselves or knowing anything about the slow bowler, had, as usual, mistaken him for a trench mortar and were making a belated reply. Only his servant accompanied him on these jaunts. He was a nice quiet villain, whose lust for adventure had, I always imagine, been long ago satisfied by a dozen or so gentle burglaries in his civilian past. He didn't want to kill people; his job in life was to keep his master alive and well fed. So when the latter went out bombing he thought he might as well go out with him, and occupy himself picking turnips for to-morrow's stew.