g, so wistful that Mistress
couldn't bear it, and she slipped him in hastily between the revolver and
the boracic powder, "Just to look after you," she said. So Common came
with me to France.

His first view of the country was at Rouen, when he sat at the entrance
to my tent and hooshed the early morning flies away. His next at a
village behind the lines, where he met stout fellows of "D" Company and
took the centre of the table at mess in the apple orchard; and moreover
was introduced to a French maiden of two, with whom, at the instigation
of the seconds in the business--her mother and myself--a prolonged but
monotonous conversation in the French tongue ensued, Common, under
suitable pressure, barking idiomatically, and the maiden, carefully
prompted, replying with the native for "Bow-wow." A pretty greenwood
scene beneath the apple-trees, and in any decent civilization the great
adventure would have ended there. But Common knew that it was not only
for this that he had been brought out, and that there was more arduous
work to come.

Once more he retired to the valise, for we were making now for a
vill--for a heap of bricks near the river; you may guess the river. It
was about this time that I made a little rhyme for him:

There was a young puppy called Howard,
Who at fighting was rather a coward;
He never quite ran
When the battle began,
But he started at once to bow-wow hard.

A good poet is supposed to be superior to the exigencies of rhyme, but I
am afraid that in any case Common's reputation had to be sacrificed to
them. To be lyrical over anybody called Howard Common without hinting
that he--well, try for yourself. Anyhow it was a lie, as so much good
poetry is.

There came a time when valises were left behind and life for a fortnight
had to be sustained on a pack. One seems to want very many things, but
there was no hesitation about Common's right to a place. So he came to
see his first German dug-out, and to get a proper understanding of this
dead bleached land and the great work which awaited him there. It was to
blow away shells and bullets when they came too near the master in whose
pocket he sat.

In this he was successful; but I think that the feat in which he takes
most pride was performed one very early summer morning. A telephone line
had to be laid, and, for reasons obvious to Common, rather rapidly. It
was laid safely--a mere nothing to him by this time. But when it was
joined up