upon her fainting flock, and
announces:--

"The half-hour's gone. Now you can _all_ have a drink!"

What would have happened if the waiter of old had done this thing, it
is difficult to imagine. But the elderly gentlemen greet their Hebe
with a chorus of welcome, and clamour for precedence like children at
a school-feast. And yet trusting wives believe that in his club, at
least, a man is safe!

Major Wagstaffe, D.S.O., having been absent from London upon urgent
public affairs for nearly three years, was not well versed in the
newest refinements of club life. He had arrived that morning from his
Convalescent Home in the west country, and had already experienced a
severe reverse at the hands of the small girl with brass buttons on
venturing to order a sherry and bitters at 11.45 A.M. Consequently, at
the statutory hour, his voice was not uplifted with the rest; and he
was served last. Not least, however; for Hebe, observing his empty
sleeve, poured out his soda-water with her own fair hands, and offered
to light his cigarette.

This scene of dalliance was interrupted by the arrival of Captain
Bobby Little. He wore the ribbon of the Military Cross and walked with
a stick--a not unusual combination in these great days. Wagstaffe made
room for him upon the leather sofa, and Hebe supplied his modest wants
with an indulgent smile.

An autumn and a winter had passed since the attack on Longueval. From
July until the December floods, the great battle had raged. The New
Armies, supplied at last with abundant munitions, a seasoned Staff,
and a concerted plan of action, had answered the question propounded
in a previous chapter in no uncertain fashion. Through Longueval and
Delville Wood, where the graves of the Highlanders and South Africans
now lie thick, through Flers and Martinpuich, through Pozieres and
Courcelette, they had fought their way, till they had reached the
ridge, with High Wood at its summit, which the Boche, not altogether
unreasonably, had regarded as impregnable. The tide had swirled over
the crest, down the reverse slope, and up at last to the top of that
bloodstained knoll of chalk known as the Butte de Warlencourt. There
the Hun threw in his hand. With much loud talk upon the subject of
victorious retirements and Hindenburg Lines, he withdrew himself to
a region far east of Bapaume; with the result that now some thousand
square miles of the soil of France had been restored once and for all
to their ri