"No," he replied, "me. There was another bird there this morning being lushed up to a bar to his D.S.O.--an R.N.R. Lieutenant called Gedge. What you'd call a broth of a boy. We had lunch together afterwards." The speaker sighed heavily and passed his hand across his forehead. "I think we must have had tea too," he added meditatively. The Young Doctor looked round the laughing circle of faces. "Where is he? Did you bring him along with you?" Mouldy Jakes shook his head and reached out for his soda water. "No ... he went to sleep...." The Young Doctor sat down on the fender beside the speaker. "How's the hand getting on, old lad?" "Nicely, what's left of it. They let me out without a keeper now. Had a good leave? When d'you go back?" "To-morrow," replied the First Lieutenant with a sigh. "Buck up and get well again, Mouldy, and come back to us. We're all going North to-morrow night, Gerrard and Tweedledum, and Pills here ... and all the rest of 'em. You'd better join up with the party!" He spoke in gently chaffing, affectionate tones. "I don't think we can spare you, old Sunny Jim." "No," said Mouldy Jakes dryly; "but unfortunately that's what the rotten doctors say." He rose to his feet and extended his uninjured hand, "S'long, Number One! I've got to get back to my old nursing home or I'll find myself on the mat.... S'long, Pills. Give 'em all my love, and tell 'em I'm coming back all right when the plumbers have finished with me." He stopped at the doorway and turned, facing the group round the fireplace. "I guess you couldn't do without your Little Ray of Sunshine!" His wry smile flitted across his solemn countenance and the next moment he was gone. CHAPTER XIV INTO THE WAY OF PEACE The King's Messenger thrust a bundle of sealed envelopes into his black leather despatch-case and closed the lock with a snap. "Any orders?" he asked. "I go North at eleven to-night." The civilian clerk seated at the desk in the dusty Whitehall office leaned back in his chair and passed his hand over his face. He looked tired and pallid with overwork and lack of exercise. "Yes," he said, and searched among the papers with which the desk was littered. "There was a telephone message just now----" He found and consulted some pencilled memoranda. "You are to call at Sir William Thorogood's house at nine o'clock. There may be a letter or a message for you to take up to the Commander-in-Chief." The speaker picked up a paper-knife and examined it with the air of one who saw a paper-knife for the first time and found it on the whole disappointing. "The Sea Lords are dining there," he added after a pause. The King's Messenger was staring through the window into the well of a dingy courtyard. He received his instructions with a rather absent nod of the head. "The house," continued the civilian in his colourless tones, "is in Queen Anne's Gate, number----"