I passed a wretched night, came to a desperate resolution early in the morning, and carried it out about nine o’clock. Cæsar was in his “delightful rooms.” They certainly had a pleasant aspect, but the furniture disgusted me; it might have been selected by a late-Victorian poet. I looked for a book or a picture which might connect Cæsar with the R.N.V.R., and looked in vain. He was busy trampling upon the best two years of his life and forgetting that he had ever been a man. It should not be. Presently he came in from his bedroom and began to talk in the manner of the night before but I cut him short. “Cæsar,” I said brutally, “you are no better than an ass. Look at these rooms. Is this the place for a man who has lived and fought in a motor-boat, a battle-cruiser, and a T.B.D.? You have sunk a German submarine, served in the Jutland Battle, and lost a leg in your country’s service. Hug these things to your soul, don’t throw them away. Brood upon them, write about them, for the love of Heaven don’t try to forget them.” I saw his eyes light up, but he said nothing. His lips began to twitch and, knowing him as I did, I should have heeded their warning. But unchecked I drivelled on: “Are you the man to shrink from an effort because of pain? Did you grouse when your leg was blown off? Wring all you can out of the future. Read History, join the F.O., study Russian. But do these things in a manner worthy of Lieutenant-Commander Cæsar, and don’t try to revive the puling Oxford spark that you were two years ago before the war came to sweep the rubbish out of you.” He gave a clumsy leap, tripped over his new leg, and fell into a chair. Lying there he laughed and laughed and laughed. How he laughed! Not loud, but deeply, thoroughly, persistently, as if to make up for a long abstinence. “Confound you!” I growled. “What the deuce are you laughing at?” “You,” said Cæsar simply. At the word the truth surged over me in a shameful flood. That preposterous dinner with its babble of Balzac and Turgeniev, Church music, and Turkish cigarettes. These rooms stripped of all reminders of two strenuous years of war. That Oxford accent and the intolerable Oxford slang. “Cæsar,” I shouted, joining in his exuberant laughter, “you have been pulling my leg all the time.” “All the time,” said he. “My bedroom is full of stuff that I cleared out of here. Last night, Copplestone, your ever-lengthening face was a lovely study, and I have wondered ever since how I kept in my laughter.” “You young villain,” cried I, overjoyed to find that Cæsar was still my bright friend of the R.N.V.R. “How shall I ever get even with you?”