and indulged in a light luncheon, he went for
a stroll into the street. Looking up, he saw the windows of the rooms
where he had spent such lonely, bitter hours crusading against the
world's ignorance. It was all so distant, so far in the past, that it
was like returning to a boyhood's haunt after the lapse of many years.

Going into Pall Mall, he felt a curiosity to see the Royal Automobile
Club again. He entered its busy doors, and passing through to the
lounge, took a seat in a corner. The place was full of officers, most
of them Canadians on leave; but here and there in the huge room he
caught a glimpse of sturdy old civilian members, well past the sixty
mark, fighting Foch's amazing victories anew over their port and cigars.

Inciting his eyes roam about the place, Selwyn noticed a group of six
or seven subalterns surrounding a Staff officer, the whole party
indulging in explosive merriment apparently over the quips of the
betabbed gentleman in the centre. Selwyn shifted his chair to get a
better view of the official humorist, but he could only make out a
tunic well covered with foreign decorations. A moment later one of the
subalterns shifted his position, and Selwyn could see that the
much-decorated officer was wearing an enormous pair of spurs that would
have done admirably for a wicked baron in a pantomime. But his knees!
Superbly cut as were his breeches, they could not disguise those
expressive knees.

Selwyn called a waitress over. 'Can you tell me,' he said, 'who that
officer is in the centre of the room--that Staff officer?'

'Him? Oh, that's Colonel Johnston Smyth of the War Office.'

'Colonel--Johnston Smyth!' Selwyn repeated the words mechanically.

'That's him himself, sir. Will you have anything to drink?'

'I think I had better,' said Selwyn.

About ten minutes later, after perpetrating a jest which completely
convulsed his auditors, the War Office official rose to his feet,
endeavoured to adjust a monocle--with no success--smoothed his tunic,
winked long and expressively, and with an air of melancholy dignity
made for the door, with the admiring pack following close behind.

'Good-day, colonel,' said Selwyn, crossing the room and just managing
to intercept the great man.

The ex-artist inclined his head with that nice condescension of the
great who realise that they must be known by many whom it is impossible
for themselves to know, when he noticed the features of the American.