field allowance. Hence the one-and-fivepence. I tell you, little
escapes them on Olympus. So does much, but that is another story.

* * * * *

Last of all comes the Practical Joke Department. It covers practically
all of one side of Olympus--the shady side.

The jokes usually take the form of an order, followed by a
counter-order. For example--

In his magisterial days Ayling, of whom we have previously heard, was
detailed by his Headmaster to undertake the organisation of a school
corps to serve as a unit of the Officers' Training Corps--then one of
the spoilt bantlings of the War Office. Being a vigorous and efficient
young man, Ayling devoted four weeks of his summer holiday to a course
of training with a battalion of regulars at Aldershot. During that
period, as the prospective commander of a company, he was granted the
pay and provisional rank of captain, which all will admit was handsome
enough treatment. Three months later, when after superhuman struggles
he had pounded his youthful legionaries into something like
efficiency, his appointment to a commission was duly confirmed, and he
found himself gazetted--Second Lieutenant. In addition to this, he was
required to refund to the Practical Joke Department the difference
between second lieutenant's pay and the captain's pay which he had
received during his month's training at Aldershot!

But in these strenuous days the Department has no time for baiting
individuals. It has two or three millions of men to sharpen its wit
upon. Its favourite pastime at present is a sort of giant's game of
chess, the fair face of England serving as board, and the various
units of the K. armies as pieces. The object of the players is to get
each piece through as many squares as possible in a given time, it
being clearly understood that no move shall count unless another piece
is evicted in the process. For instance, we, the _x_th Brigade of the
_y_th Division, are suddenly uprooted from billets at A and planted
down in barracks at B, displacing the _p_th Brigade of the _q_th
Division in the operation. We have barely cleaned tip after the
_p_th--an Augean task--and officers have just concluded messing,
furnishing, and laundry arrangements with the local _banditti_, when
the Practical Joke Department, with its tongue in its cheek, bids us
prepare to go under canvas at C. Married officers hurriedly despatch
advance parties, composed of their wives, to