pocket's brim a simple pipe-bowl was to him, and it was nothing more. Of
course no decent B.E.F. mess could stand that. Jackson was told that a
pipe was _anathema maranatha_, which is Greek for _no bon._

"What will I smoke then?" said Jackson, who was no Englishman. We waited
for the Intelligence Officer to reply. We knew him. The Intelligence
Officer said nothing. He drew something from his pocket. It was a parcel
wrapped in cloth-of-gold. He removed the cloth-of-gold and there was
discovered a casket, which he unlocked with a key attached to his
identity disc. Inside the casket was a padlocked box, which he opened
with a key attached by gold wire to his advance pay-book. Inside the box
was a roll of silk. To cut it all short, he unwound puttee after puttee
of careful wrapping till he reached a chamois-leather chrysalis, which
he handled with extreme reverence, and from this he drew something with
gentle fingers, and set it on the table-cloth before the goggle-eyed
Jackson.

"A pipe," said Jackson.

There was a shriek of horror. The Intelligence Officer fainted. Here was
wanton sacrilege.

"Man," said the iron-nerved Bombing Officer, "it's a Brownhill."

"What's a Brownhill?" asked Jackson.

We gasped. How could we begin to tell him of that West End shrine from
which issue these lacquered symbols of a New Religion?

The Intelligence Officer was reviving. We looked to him.

"The prophet Brownhill," he said, "was once a tobacconist--an ordinary
tobacconist who sold pipes."

We shuddered.

"He discovered one day that man wants more than mere pipes. He wants
a--a super-pipe, something to reverence and--er--look after, you know,
as well as to smoke. So he invented the Brownhill. It is an _affaire de
coeur_--an affair of art," translated the I.O. proudly. "It is as glossy
as a chestnut in its native setting, and you can buy furniture polish
from the prophet Brownhill which will keep it always so. It has its
year, like a famous vintage, it has a silver wind-pipe, and it costs
anything up to fifty guineas."

"D'you smoke it'?" asked Jackson, brutally.

We gave him up. In awful silence each of us produced his wrappings and
his caskets, extracted the shining briar, smeared it with cosmetics, and
polished it more reverently than a peace time Guardsman polishes his
buttons when warned for duty next day at "Buck."
* * * * *
And Jackson smoked his pipe in secret. He would take no leaf