g the
day.

"Railway Staff Officer? Yes, sir, straight in here, sir."

A very pale youth, in the cleanest of kit, whitest of collars, and
with the pinkest of pink impertinences round his cap and neck. He
never looked up from the paper on which he was writing as he opened
the following conversation--

_Pale Youth._ "What can I do for you?"

_Applicant._ "I am here under telegraphic instructions."

_P. Y. (taking telegram proffered)_ "Never heard of you."

_A._ "You must have some record of that wire!"

_P. Y._ "I never sent it. It must have been sent by the Railway Staff
Officer. He's asleep now. Come back in the morning and see him!"

_A. (furiously)_ "You d----d young cub!--is this the way you treat
your seniors? What do you belong to?"

_P. Y. (Jumping up nervously)_ "Oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I thought
you were one of those helpless Yeomanry officers. They are the plague
of our lives. I will go and wake the R.S.O." [_Disappears. Returns in
five minutes._]

_P. Y._ "The R.S.O. says that you must report to the office of the
line of communications. They may have orders about you. You will find
the brigade-major in a saloon carriage on the third siding outside the
Rosmead line." [_Salutes._]

We go out into the night again, wondering if perdition can equal De
Aar for miserable discomfort, and De Aar officialdom for
inconsequence. The third siding, indeed! It was an hour before the
saloon was found in that labyrinth of cast-iron.

The brigade-major was there, a wretched worn object of a man, plodding
by the eccentric light of a tallow dip through the day's telegrams.
Poor wretch! he earns his pittance as thoroughly as any of us do.
Again we drew blank. "Never heard of you." All we could get out of him
was, "You had better bed down in the station and await events." Poor
devil! so worn with work and worry that he looked as if a simple
little De Aar dust-devil would snap his backbone if it touched him. So
we were turned adrift again in the old iron heap to swell the army of
vagrants who live by their wits upon the communications.

It was about two in the morning before we found our servants. The
soldier servant is a jewel--but a jewel with some blemishes. If you
tell him to do anything "by numbers," he will do it splendidly; but he
does not consider it part of his duty to think for himself,
consequently you have always to think both for yourself and your
servant, and that is why on this occasion we found o