To make his task the more difficult, he could not help feeling that his present job was one for which he was ill-qualified; certainly it was not the one he would have chosen. Somehow it filled him with a deep repugnance to train others in the art of killing, even in the art of killing the Hun; but it was not for him to decide where such powers as he had could be of most use to the state. He did not quarrel with the edict which declared him unfit for the trenches, but there were times when he would almost have preferred their particularly foul brand of boredom to the dismal routine of acquiring a parade voice, and the grind of rubbing up his mathematics, a branch of knowledge in which he had never shone. It came to him, therefore, with a sense of grateful relief, when one day, about a week after he had returned to his unit, a letter reached him of an informal friendliness, yet written on government paper. It said: _Whitehall, December 2._ MY DEAR BRANDON: If a square peg can be persuaded to forsake a round hole, some of us here feel that the country might make a more profitable use of your services, that is to say, there is an opportunity to give your highly specialized qualities freer play. A ministry of Social Reconstruction is being formed, to deal mainly with post-war problems--it is not quite our English way to take time by the forelock in this audacious fashion, but some of our Colonial friends are teaching us a thing or two--and last night in conversation with Prowse and Mortimer among others, your name came up. We agreed that your particular light is not one to hide under a bushel of coal. One shudders to think of the number of tricks of the kind that have been played already, but at last we are beginning to realize that the country can’t afford it. So if you will consent to work under Prowse, with or without payment, I think the War Office can be persuaded to spare you for a larger sphere of usefulness. Yours ever, GEORGE SPEKE. In the depths of his boredom Brandon could have kissed the letter, and have wept for joy. The tact of an expert handler of men, who well understood the bundle of quixotisms with whom he had to deal, had played the tempter’s part with rare success. A letter of that kind left no doubt that the country was about to gain enormously by depleting the Tynesi de Terriers of a morbidly conscientious subaltern, while at the same time enriching a government department with a real live ex-fellow of Gamaliel.