"Good God, Bowdy, where was I? Guess. I was in a lunatic asylum.... 'Twas enough to turn my brain. And it's a difficult job to prove that you're sane when you're in a madhouse. They won't believe you, for some damned reason or another. I used to go up to the warder and say: 'Look here, matey, I'm as right as rain,' and he would nod his head and say: 'Oh, yes, of course you are.' But 'twas easy enough to see that he didn't believe you. God! I often felt like strangling the man.... It wouldn't do me any good, I knew, to kick up a ruction; so I kept very quiet and well-behaved. "At the end of six weeks I was discharged and sent to a convalescent camp; not as good as the one that Flanagan had been in when he got wounded. Impossible to swing the lead there. I got sick of it in no time, so I applied for a transfer to the B.E.F., somewhere in France. "'Do you really want to go out there again?' my mates asked me. "'Of course I do,' I told them. "'Then you must be mad,' they said. "But I had no luck with my application. 'Out to the trenches again,' said the M.O. Tut, tut, man! I'll bring you before a Board and see what it says.' "The Board said 'Discharge' and I was discharged with a pension. So there I was out on my own, a wash-out. Patrick Fitzgerald, pensioner, non bon, one that had done his bit, who had been through the thick of it, in the doings, a brave boy, lion-hearted, and so on. My friends took me into their arms and made no end of a fuss of me. England had reason to be proud of her sons, they said, and took me about to swell dinners." "Just like ole Flan when 'e was at 'ome," said Bubb. "I hobnobbed with big bugs," Fitzgerald continued, "grand old men who were in the know and who knew everything, having inside information; well-dressed women who preached economy to the masses, who denied themselves luxuries which they were healthier without, who rode on common buses and advertised the fact, and who travelled by tube as an example to those who always travel by tube. Nobody paid much heed to them as far as I could see. The people with whom I stopped denied themselves the services of a butler and took in his place an extra female servant. They were very rich, and self-denial was their greatest craze. In furthering their country's cause they displayed as much ingenuity as a cautious billiard player who just misses the balls. I grew tired of it all, wearied to death," said Fitzgerald, placing his bread on the table and pulling the wine bottle towards him. He pulled out the cork, filled his mates' glasses, but took no notice of his own. "It doesn't do for me to take any now," he said, in an apologetic voice. "It goes to here." He tapped his head with his fingers. "There was once," said Bubb....