One vulture will come to exchange old lamps for new, another to do a deal in magnetos, and a third, may be, to better himself in the matter of wheels. There will be some squabbling, and, when the work is done, the last state of that casualty will be worse than the first, and it will proceed to the Base a melancholy collection of all the most dilapidated parts in the area, for which even the most optimistic authority at the back of beyond will see no useful future. Yesterday the following interview took place at my little office, which is also my little home and is very handsomely and elaborately furnished with a system of boxes, some to sit on, some to write on and some to go to sleep in. "An officer to see you, Sir," said the orderly, and in there came a representative from Signals who was pleased to meet me. I put aside my work in order to deal with him politely, firmly and once and for all. "If," I said haughtily, "you are the gentleman who rings me up on the telephone every morning at 7 A.M., goes on ringing me up till I creep to the instrument and murmur 'Hello!' and then tells me that is all and will I please ring off, then I too am glad we have met at last." He denied the suggestion so hotly that I unbent a little. I asked him to be seated, and offered him a part of my bed for the purpose. "It's like this," he began. "Is it?" said I. "Then no doubt you want me to sign an Army Form and take all the responsibility?" "For what?" he asked. "I'm sure I don't know," I answered; "and it doesn't much matter, for I shall only pass it on to someone else, please." For once it wasn't an Army Form. Was I not, he ventured to ask, the proprietor of a small car? "What was once a small car before it met what was once a large telegraph pole," I said thoughtlessly. He was glad to hear this, as he too was the owner of a small car. We shook hands on that, though we knew all the time that H.M. Government was the owner of both. H.M. Government not being present, however, to insist on its rights, we were able to do a quiet swank. In the course of it he mentioned, quite by the way, the matter of shock-absorbers. He had reason to believe that my car could spare his car a couple of these. I saw the need for hedging. "That telegraph pole I mentioned just now wasn't really very large," I explained, "and it came away quietly, offering no resistance." He smiled knowingly at that. "Were _you_," I continued, fixing a cold and relentless eye upon him--"were you equally lucky with your--your--?" "Small lorry," he said, with a faint blush. "A tiny lorry, in fact." "Not more than a dozen tons or so?" I suggested. "No doubt it passed quite gradually over you, frightening more than hurting you, and you were able to walk home with remainder of small motor in pocket of greatcoat?" He didn't go into that subject. "By the way," he said, "I happened to be round at the workshops just now----"