rass hat or the boot?'

'Neither,' I said. 'But you and I are going to disappear from His
Majesty's forces. Seconded for special service.'

'O my sainted aunt!' said Sandy. 'What is it? For Heaven's sake put
me out of pain. Have we to tout deputations of suspicious neutrals
over munition works or take the shivering journalist in a motor-car
where he can imagine he sees a Boche?'

'The news will keep. But I can tell you this much. It's about as safe
and easy as to go through the German lines with a walking-stick.'

'Come, that's not so dusty,' said Sandy, and began cheerfully on the
muffins.

I must spare a moment to introduce Sandy to the reader, for he cannot
be allowed to slip into this tale by a side-door. If you will consult
the Peerage you will find that to Edward Cospatrick, fifteenth Baron
Clanroyden, there was born in the year 1882, as his second son,
Ludovick Gustavus Arbuthnot, commonly called the Honourable, etc. The
said son was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, was a captain in
the Tweeddale Yeomanry, and served for some years as honorary attache
at various embassies. The Peerage will stop short at this point, but
that is by no means the end of the story. For the rest you must
consult very different authorities. Lean brown men from the ends of
the earth may be seen on the London pavements now and then in creased
clothes, walking with the light outland step, slinking into clubs as if
they could not remember whether or not they belonged to them. From
them you may get news of Sandy. Better still, you will hear of him at
little forgotten fishing ports where the Albanian mountains dip to the
Adriatic. If you struck a Mecca pilgrimage the odds are you would meet
a dozen of Sandy's friends in it. In shepherds' huts in the Caucasus
you will find bits of his cast-off clothing, for he has a knack of
shedding garments as he goes. In the caravanserais of Bokhara and
Samarkand he is known, and there are shikaris in the Pamirs who still
speak of him round their fires. If you were going to visit Petrograd
or Rome or Cairo it would be no use asking him for introductions; if he
gave them, they would lead you into strange haunts. But if Fate
compelled you to go to Llasa or Yarkand or Seistan he could map out
your road for you and pass the word to potent friends. We call
ourselves insular, but the truth is that we are the only race on earth
that can produce men capable of getting inside the sk