ally what I came about," said _Mr. Punch_. "I want your
advice."

"My advice! Good Lord!... Sure you're comfortable there? Now what'll
you have? Cigar or barley-sugar?" _Mr. Punch_ accepted a cigar.

"We're all for barley-sugar ourselves just now," the subaltern went
on. "Seems kiddish, but there it is."

_Mr. Punch_ lit his cigar and proceeded to explain himself.

"I say that I have come to consult you," he began. "It seems strange,
you think. I am seventy-three, and you are----"

"Twenty-two," said the subaltern. "Next November."

"And yet Seventy-three comes here to sit at the feet of Twenty-two,
and for every encouraging word that Twenty-two offers him Seventy-three
will say 'Thank you!'"

"Rats," said Twenty-two for a start.

"Let me explain," said the Venerable One. "There come moments in the
life of every man when he says suddenly to himself, 'What am I doing?
Is it worth it?'--a moment when the work of which he has for years
been proud seems all at once to be of no value whatever." The
subaltern murmured something. "No, not necessarily indigestion. There
may be other causes. Well, such a moment has just come to me ... and I
wondered." He hesitated, and then added wistfully, "Perhaps you could
say something to help me."

"The pen," said the subaltern, coughing slightly, "is mightier than
the sword."

"It is," said the Sage. "I've often said so ... in Peace time."

The subaltern blushed as he searched his mind for the Historic
Example.

"Didn't WOLFE say that he would rather have written what's-its-name
than taken Quebec?" he asked hesitatingly.

"Yes, he did. And for most of his life the poet would have agreed with
him. But, if at the moment when he read of the taking of Quebec you
had asked GRAY, I think he would have changed places with WOLFE very
willingly.... And in Bouverie Street," added _Mr. Punch_, "we read of
the takings of Quebecs almost every day."

The subaltern was thoughtful for a moment.

"I'll tell you a true story," he said quietly. "There was a man in
this trench who had his leg shot off. They couldn't get him away till
night, and here he had to wait for the whole of the day.... He stuck
it out.... And what do you think he stuck it out on?"

"Morphia?" suggested _Mr. Punch_.

"Partly on morphia, and partly on--something else."

"Yes?" said _Mr. Punch_ breathlessly.

"Yes--_you_. He read ... and he laughed ... and by-and-by the night
came."

A silence came over them bot