"I have painted them with some black stuff," replied Roy. "Quite the thing—not swank! It is always done on active service: otherwise my twinkling little buttons might attract the eye of vigilant Boche." He took her arm, a little feverishly. "What about a stroll in the shades of the forest? What about it, what?" This was not the way in which Roy had intended to begin the interview. Upon such occasions of stress no man knows what humiliating tricks self-consciousness may not play upon him. But Marjorie, of the superior sex, appeared quite unruffled. "All right," she said cheerfully; "come along! I am so glad you are here." "Are you, Marjorie?" exclaimed Roy, much encouraged. "Yes. I want to consult you about something." Roy drew back an overhanging branch. "Step inside the consulting room!" he suggested. Marjorie seated herself upon a ledge of rock in the snug nook which the branch had concealed. Roy lay down on the grass at her feet. There was silence. At last Marjorie said: "When must you be at the Depot?" "Six." Roy glanced at his new, luminous, dust-proof, non-breakable wrist-watch. "That gives me twenty minutes. What did you want to talk to me about, Marjorie?" "About Joe." "Oh!" There was a certain lack of enthusiasm about the interjection, but Marjorie did not notice it. Roy looked up at her. Her brow was puckered, and her eyes were troubled. She was very fond of brother Joe. Roy, resolutely disengaging his attention from the high lights in her hair, said gently: "Tell me." Marjorie blazed out suddenly. "He can’t stand it any longer! He has done his best to be patient, and obedient to father, and all that; but it’s breaking his heart. Why, only this morning—" She related the pitiful incident of the school circular and the Roll of Honour. There were tears in her eyes when she had finished. "So," she concluded, "he has made up his mind to join up." "Good egg!" observed Roy. "Is he going to apply for a commission, or what?" "That was what I wanted to consult you about," said Marjorie. "You are so clever about these things, Roy." "Fire away!" replied Roy, much inflated. "Commissions," asked Marjorie—"can you get them easily?" "Not so easily now. The authorities are beginning to sit up and take notice. The first lot of officers in the new armies were mostly all right. They didn’t know much, but they were sahibs, who played the game and handled their men properly. Now they are getting used up, and some pretty strange fish have been given commissions lately. The voice of the T.G. is heard in the land. Here is a letter from my uncle, Alan Laing—our second-in-command. You know him?" "No, but I have seen him." Roy chuckled.