The superman presented it, and the guard inspected it closely—the attitude of the M. P. being that all men are Germans unless proved otherwise. “Thoroughly satisfactory?” inquired the superman. The M. P. grunted. The sergeant approached him and lowered his voice confidentially. “Tell you something,” he volunteered: “I’m not the same chap who went out on that pass.” “What d’you mean you’re not?” “It’s like this, old son. But first of all let me ask you something.” He glanced about cautiously. “Man to man, old son—do you believe in love at first sight?” “Last fellow who tried being funny round here,” said the guard grimly, “had a chance to laugh himself to death in the bull pen.” “No heart!” sighed the sergeant, moving on, still on air. “No soul! No imagination! Good night, my sad and lonely friend. Good night!” He moved on, singing in a very deep bass: “_Oh, promise me that some day you and I May take our love te tum, te tum, te tum._” The chief of staff, who had also discovered that his quarters needed fumigation, raised from an uneasy pillow and groaned disgustedly. “Stop that noise out there!” he bawled through the window beside him. The superman recognised neither the voice nor the new quarters of the staff. “Minion,” he said, halting and addressing the window, “hast never loved?” Then he moved on, still in a roseate cloud the exact shade of a certain pink hat. “_That we may take our love and faith renew, And find the hollows where those violets grew-w-w——_” His voice died away, swallowed up in distance and the night. When he went into the lower squad room a sort of chant greeted him from the beds: “Where, oh where’s the sergeant been?” And the reply shouted lustily: “Out getting measured for a shave.” He undressed quietly, and salvaging the piece of beefsteak from under his pillow got into bed and placed it carefully over his eye. III But tragedy had marked Sergeant Gray for its own. At reveille he rolled over, yawned and without lifting himself reached up to the pocket of his blouse and retrieved his whistle. He blew it and shouted as usual: “R-r-roll out, you dirty horsemen! R-r-roll out!” Then, arms under his head, he lay and dreamed. Round the day to come he wove little fantasies of the new uniform, and money in his pocket, and twenty-three and a half hours’ leave, and—the girl in the little car. His pass he had already secured through the top sergeant. It had been, with others on the pass list, O.K’d by the captain and re-O.K’d by the military police. At ten-thirty that morning Sergeant Gray would be a free man. He made a huge breakfast, and careful inspection showed the eye greatly improved. And he whistled blithely while laying out his things for the official inspection, comparing his belongings carefully with a list in his hand. Nothing was to go wrong that day, nothing mar the perfection of it or curtail his leave.