"Duty, my dear," I said.

"Just fancy," said Janet, "if the Germans came and father wasn't there!
We might be murdered in our beds!"

I am sometimes not quite sure whether Janet means to scoff or is in
serious earnest On this occasion I was inclined to think that she was
poking fun at the Veterans' Corps. I frowned at her.

"You'll get dreadfully wet," said my wife.

"Not the least harm in that," I said cheerily.

"It'll give you another cold in your head," said Janet

This time she was certainly sneering. I frowned again.

"Of course," said my wife, "it won't matter to you. You're so strong and
healthy. Nothing does you any harm."

I suspected her of attempting a subtle form of flattery, but what she
said was quite true. I am, for a man of fifty-three, extremely hardy.

"I'm thinking," she said, "of poor old Mr. Cotter. I don't think he
ought to go. Mrs. Cotter was round here this afternoon. She says he's
suffering dreadfully from rheumatism, though he won't admit it, and if
he goes out to-night... But he's so determined, poor old dear. And she
simply can't stop him."

"Cotter," I said, "must stay at home."

"But he won't," said my wife.

"Military ardour is very strong in him," said Janet.

"I'll ring up Dr. Tompkins," I said, "and tell him to forbid Cotter to
go out Tompkins is Medical Officer of the corps, and has a right to give
orders of the kind. In fact, it's his duty to see that the company's not
weakened by ill-health."

"I'm afraid," said my wife, "that Dr. Tompkins can do nothing. Mrs.
Cotter was with him before she came here. The fact is that Mr. Cotter
won't give in even to the doctor's orders."

I rang up Tompkins and put the case very strongly to him.

"It will simply kill Cotter," I said, "and we can't have that. He may
not be of any very great military value, but he's a nice old boy, and we
don't want to lose him."

Tompkins agreed with me thoroughly. He said he'd been thinking the
matter over since Mrs. Cotter called on him in the afternoon, and had
hit upon a plan which would meet the case.

"If only the C.O. will fall in with it," he added.

Haines is in some ways a difficult man. He likes to manage things his
own way, and resents any suggestions made to him, particularly by men in
the ranks. However, Cotter's life was at stake, so I undertook to tackle
Haines, even at the risk of being snubbed. Tompkins explained his plan
to me. I rang up Haines, and laid it before him. I p