It happened that the bank which Tony had missed won steadily, and while the heavy-jowled man who held it raked in money from everybody, Tony watched him like a dog that watches his master eating. At last the bank was finished, and with a heavy sigh of satisfaction the owner of it passed on the box to his neighbor. "How much did you make?" asked Tony, enviously. "About two thousand five hundred. I'm not sure. I never count my winnings." Tears of rage stood in Tony's eyes. "God! Do you see what you've done for me by your confounded obstinacy?" he exclaimed to his wife. All the way home he raged at her, and when they were in the flat he demanded that she should give him back all his £2,000. "So you've reached the point," she said, bitterly, "when not even promises count?" "If you don't give it back to me," Tony vowed, "I'll sell up the whole flat. Damn it, I'll even sell my boots," he swore, as he tripped over some outposts for which there was no place in the line that extended along the wall of his dressing-room. Dorothy thought of that lunch-party in Christ Church and of the first time she had beheld those boots. She remembered that then she had beheld in them a symbol of boundless wealth. Now they represented a few shillings in a gambler's pocket. And actually next morning, in order to show that he had been serious the night before, Tony summoned two buyers of old clothes to make an offer for them. "Don't be so childish," Dorothy exclaimed. "You can't sell your boots! Aren't you going down to camp this year?" "To camp?" he echoed. "How the deuce do you think I'm going to camp without a halfpenny? No, my dear girl, a week ago I wrote to resign my commission in the N.D.D. You might make a slight effort to realize that we are paupers. And if you won't let me have any of that two thousand pounds we shall remain paupers." At that moment a telegram was handed in: All officers of North Devon Dragoons to report at depot immediately. "Hasn't that fool of an adjutant got my letter?" Tony exclaimed. Another telegram arrived: Thought under circumstances you would want to cancel letter holding it till I see you. "Circumstances? What circumstances?" In the street outside a newspaper-boy was crying, "Austrian hultimatum! Austrian hultimatum!" "My God!" Tony cried, a light coming into his eyes. "It can't really mean war? How perfectly glorious! Wonderful! Get out, you rascals!" and he hustled the old-clothes men out of the flat. Three weeks later Dorothy received the following letter from Flanders: