"Yes," he said, "and he has seen you; and you fairly knocked him flat! But never mind Uncle Alan now. He’s a wicked old man, anyhow. About this T.G. business. Uncle Alan wrote to me the other day. He said that some of the officers lately sent out were about the stickiest crowd he had yet handled. Here’s the letter." _Of course, among ourselves in the Mess, he read, we make allowances, and try to get the best out of them; for after all, most of them are plucky enough and efficient enough. Unfortunately, the rank-and-file, with the true British passion for inequality, do not share our democratic sentiments. They say, in effect: "This blankety blighter is no better than we are. Why should we salute him, or obey him, or follow him?" The T.G. too often confirms his own sentence; I caught one of my subalterns trying to stand a corporal a drink the other day. I hear they are going to start officers’ schools soon. The sooner the better!_ "Of course," said Marjorie, flying, woman-like, to the personal application of the subject, "Joe wouldn’t behave like that." "Good Lord, no! Of course he wouldn’t," said Roy. "Amos probably would, though," added honest Marjorie. "He has never been to a proper school, so he has had no chance to have his Clegg manners improved. But we aren’t troubling about Amos: it’s Joe. Would they take him into a Cadet Officers’ School, do you think?" "I am sure they would," said Roy confidently. "Only, it might require a little time, you know." "That’s a drawback," replied Marjorie. "Once father knows what Joe is trying to do, his life at home won’t be worth living. It’ll be a fight all day long: he will be lectured, and badgered, and prayed over. I shouldn’t wonder if they sent for Uncle Fred!" A thought struck Roy. "I say," he enquired, "how old is Joe?" "Twenty." "That hangs the crape on Joseph!" announced Roy—"for a year, at any rate. They won’t give a commission to a minor without his father’s consent." He wriggled. "Don’t I know it! If they did, I’d have been in the show a year ago." "In that case," said Marjorie, "we must fall back on our second plan." "We?" "I mean Joe and I." "Oh, sorry. I was hoping you meant you and me! What is the plan?" "It’s a secret just now," said Marjorie. "Perhaps I’ll tell you about it, when I write." Roy looked up eagerly. "You _will_ write to me?" he said. "Often?" "Of course I will!" said the girl. "It will be wonderful!"