a woman
in the case. John North turned up his sleeves as though he had been a
boxer all his life, and proceeded to trounce his opponent with such
vigour that the biscuit tins were hurled to the ground and the contents
of a box of chocolates were scattered all over the floor.

As far as we are concerned, Mademoiselle Therese passes out of existence
from this moment, but the little incident in her shop was not without
consequences. In the first place, the Military Police cast the two
miscreants into the same guard room, where, from bitter rivals, they
became the best of friends. In the second place, John North, having once
drawn blood, was no longer content with his former life, and wanted to
draw more.

In the end he joined the Westfords, and fired his first shot over the
parapet under direct tuition from his new friend. It matters little
that his first shot flew several yards above the German parapet; the
intention was good, and it is always possible that the bullet may have
stung into activity some corpulent Hun whose duty called on him to lead
pack horses about behind the firing line.

* * * * *

For weeks Holy John, as his company called him, passed out of my life.
There were many other things to think of--bombs and grenades, attacks
and counter-attacks, "barrages" and trench mortars, and all the other
things about which we love to discourse learnedly when we come home on
leave. John North was, for the time, completely forgotten.

But one day when the Great Push was in full swing, I met him again. From
his former point of view he had sadly degenerated; from ours he had
become a useful fellow with a useful conscience that told him England
wanted him to "do in" as many Huns as he could.

I was supervising some work on a trench that had been German, but was
now ours--the red stains on the white chalk told of the fight for
it--when a voice I knew sounded from farther up the trench.

"If you don't bloomin' well march better, I won't arf biff you one, I
won't," I heard, as the head of a strange little procession came round
the traverse. At the rear of six burly but downcast Germans, came
Private John North, late Conscientious Objector, driving his prisoners
along with resounding oaths and the blood-chilling manoeuvres of a
bayonet that he brandished in his left hand.

"They'll all mine, sir, the beauties," he said as he passed me. "Got 'em
all meself, and paid me little finger for '