ve_ got," one of his chiefs had once gravely said
to him. "Something is sure to be swallowed up in the fog of war," he
had added. Pleased with the phrase, which he conceived to be
original, he had used it as some men do a titled relative, with the
result that Whitehall had clutched at it gratefully.

"The fog of war," General Conyers Bardulph had muttered when, for
the life of him, he could not find a division that was due upon the
Western Front. and which it was his duty to see was sent out.

"The fog of war," murmured spiteful Anita McGowan, when the pretty
little widow, Mrs. Sleyton, was being interrogated as to the
whereabouts of her husband.

"The fog of war," laughed the girls in Department J.P.Q., when at
half-past four one afternoon neither its chief nor his dark-eyed
secretary had returned from lunch.

"But when he went to Department Z he was wonderful," said Mrs. West,
still clinging tenderly to her Ishmael.

"He was," said Sir John Dene. "He was the plumb best man at his job
I ever came across."

"Yes, John dear, that's all very well," said Dorothy, her eyes
dancing, "but suppose you had been the War Cabinet and you had sent
for Mr. Sage;" she paused.

"Well?" he demanded.

"And he had come in a cap and a red tie," she proceeded, "and had
resigned within five minutes, saying that you were talking of things
you didn't know anything about." She laughed at the recollection.

"He was right," said Sir John Dene with conviction. "I've come
across some fools; but----"

"There, there, dear," said Dorothy, "remember there are ladies
present. In Whitehall we all loved Mr. Sage because he snubbed
Ministers, and we hadn't the pluck to do it ourselves," she added.

Sir John Dene snorted. His mind travelled back to the time when he
had been "up against the whole sunflower-patch," as he had once
expressed it.

"But why did they keep him if they didn't like him?" enquired Mrs.
West.

"When you don't like anyone in Whitehall," Dorothy continued, "you
don't give him the push, mother dear, you just transfer him to
another department."

"Like circulating bad money," grumbled Sir John Dene.

"It sure was, John," she agreed. "Poor Mr. Sage soon became the most
transferred man in Whitehall. They used to say, 'Uneasy lies the
head that has a Sage.'" She laughed at the recollection.

"But wasn't it rather unkind?" said Mrs. West gently.

"It was, mother-mine; but Whitehall was a funny place. One of Mr.
Sage's