t not least, that famous mascot of General
Hospital One-Three-One, Hector O'Brien.

Hector O'Brien was born in the deeps of a Congo forest. Of his early
life little is known, but as far as can be gathered, he made his way to
France by way of Egypt and Gallipoli and was presented by a grateful
patient to the nursing sisters and ambulance staff of One-Three-One, and
by them was adopted with enthusiasm.

Hector O'Brien did precious little to earn either fame or notoriety
until one memorable day. He used to sit in the surgery, before a large
packing-case, wistfully watching the skies and scratching himself in an
absent-minded manner. A chimpanzee may not cogitate very profoundly, and
the statement that he is a deep thinker though an indifferent
conversationalist has yet to be proved; but it is certain that Hector
O'Brien was a student of medicine, and that he did, on this memorable
day to which reference has been made, perambulate the wards of that
hospital from bed to bed, feeling pulses and shaking his head in a sort
of melancholy helplessness which brought joy to the heart of eight
hundred patients, some hundred doctors, nurses and orderlies, and did
not in any way disturb the melancholy principal medical officer, who was
wholly unconscious of Hector's impertinent imitations.

Second-Lieutenant Tam, who was a frequent visitor at One-Three-One, had
at an early stage struck up a friendship with Hector and had, I believe,
taken him on patrol duty, Hector strapped tightly to the seat, holding
with a grip of iron to the fuselage and chattering excitedly.

Thereafter, upon the little uniform jacket which Hector wore on state
occasions was stitched the wings of a trained pilot. It is necessary to
explain Hector's association with the R. F. C. in order that the
significance of the subsequent adventure may be thoroughly appreciated.

Tam was "up" one day and on a particular mission. He looked down upon a
big and irregular checker-board covered with numbers of mad white
lines, which radiated from a white center and seemed to run frantically
in all directions save one. Across that course, and running parallel
beneath three of them was a straight silver thread. At the edge of his
vision and beyond the place where the white lines ended abruptly, there
were two irregular zigzags of yellow running roughly parallel. Behind
each of these were thousands of little yellow splotches.

Tam banked over and came round on a hairpin turn, wi